


Harry Potter: Year Eight (temporary title)

by Des98



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Dumbledore's dead cuz I don't really like him that much, F/M, Fred Weasley Lives, Greek Mythology - Freeform, M/M, Multi, My roomate is a basilisk and I think she hates me, Nymphadora Tonks Lives, Remus Lupin Lives, Severus Snape Lives, Sporadic unreliable narrator, Trigger warning: abuse, so there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-14
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2018-09-24 07:01:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 30,453
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9709463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Des98/pseuds/Des98
Summary: Harry Potter was looking forward to a relaxing eighth year at Hogwarts.  But since when is anything that simple?  Apparently he has to handle the Lordship of the Potter estate and all the responsibilities (and the ludicrously large fortune) it entails.  So who better to go to for advice and help with learning estate management than the cultivated Malfoy scion?  But they both may be in over their heads when they begin to realize they have some... odd feelings towards each other.  Although even that seems to pale in comparison to Harry's rapidly developing new powers, the likes of which no one has ever seen and nobody understands.  Perhaps Dumbledore's "love" theory wasn't the real reason he survived two killing curses? It seems that the universe has bigger plans for Harry than anyone could possibly imagine, and Hogwarts is about to get thrown right in the middle of an enigma once again.





	1. Chapter One (aka chapter titles require thinking time that could be used to write the actual fucking chapter)

**Author's Note:**

> So this is just a wee brain worm that's been bugging me. I used a few various ideas from tumblr to bring it together with the little things (like Harry's lip ring). The Potterverse belongs to J.K. Rowling, sadly, because she could have done a lot more with it. I am not making any money of of this work, blah blah de fucking blah. I would appreciate if you would comment on how you feel about it. Constructive criticism is nice, but flame me and I'll light your fucking ass on fire right back. Anyway, enjoy. Or don't. I don't normally post my writings so this is either a gift or you can ignore my existence like everyone else. Thanks.

When people asked Harry Potter how he was that September, he was finally able to say “great,” and actually mean it. Voldemort was gone, and he had experienced the greatest summer of his life. There were no Dursley’s with Vernon’s belt or Petunia’s screeching and giving him all the house work so she could gossip with her friends and generally be a menace to anyone with a decent sense of morality (or working ears). He had stayed with the Weasley family while he fixed up the cottage in Godric’s Hollow. He had decided to look into other career paths besides being an auror- a professor, a healer maybe, but he was officially done with filling the wizarding world’s expectations. He had done more than he owed them by taking care of their dark wizard infestation even though he was an untrained teenager, thank you very much.  
The only worry that niggled at his mind was how he was going to tell Ginny that he didn’t see her in a romantic way anymore- if he ever did. He loved her, surely, but the whole time they were dating, it felt a bit like kissing his baby sister, though it took him a while to figure out that’s what it was, with his inexperience with romantic entanglements. But Gin took care of the problem for him- by telling him that she was bisexual and in a committed relationship with Neville and Luna. He was surprised, but also relieved and overwhelmingly happy for her, although he couldn’t quite place the niggling feeling that came up in his mind when she told him, until she told him herself, of course.  
“Harry, you’re gay.”  
Not surprisingly, the statement took him back a little, but as Ginny walked him through details about himself that she couldn’t have known unless they were the same for her, like the fact that his eyes would linger on Cedric’s face in fourth year just a little bit longer than strictly necessary, or how awkward his brief kiss was with Cho, or how kissing her just felt off, Harry couldn’t deny that the suggestion had merit. So they both agreed that they would help each other stay “in the closet,” so to speak, until Ginny was ready to divulge the unconventional nature of her relationship with her partners to her family, and until Harry found someone to come out of the closet for (the brief flash of silver eyes through his mind was gone too quickly to leave him with anything but a subconscious sense of mild bemusement). Then, as all magical gay pseudo-siblings do, off the went to celebrate their newfound sense of rebellion together. Harry, per Ginny’s suggestion, actually got the Hungarian Horntail on his back it had long been rumored he’d possessed, as well as a lip ring, while the feisty little redhead got a nose stud, three rings in each ear, as well as a stud in her left-side cartilage, in addition to a much smaller Welsh Greenback tattoo on her shoulder, and laughed when the moving ink dragons started snorting at each and breathing fire from their respective bodies.  
Muggle London was just as eventful as Harry went to get clothes that had never graced Dudley’s fat bottom, and then to get takeaway off the curry cart for both of them while Ginny browsed a high-end lingerie store. The wizarding teen looked rather green as he decided that, no, this was one aspect of muggle culture that Arthur did not want to know about, and that he would keep it from the genial man for his own good. If only he could obliviate himself… yes, gay is good, if he never had to imagine Ginny wearing that while doing things with him that he decided he was much happier staying between her, Neville, and Luna.  
So, the summer ended in happy days and the most beautiful sense of peace and the good kind of normality Harry Potter had ever felt. And if his magic was getting a lot stronger (to the point where the Weasley’s were giving him contemplative and puzzled looks, not that he noticed), he chalked it up to being the normal magical maturity that all witches and wizards experienced in early adulthood. He hadn’t really experimented with it overmuch, after all, so intent was he on just relaxing and enjoying the unfamiliar feeling of not worrying about the next threat to his life, whether it be an obese muggle uncle or a snake-faced dark lord.  
The gleaming scarlet Hogwarts Express seemed more beautiful than ever, even if the rest of the family laughed at his and Ron’s (well justified, in their opinions) caution when approaching the platform, making sure that it was still, in fact, translucent. He shuddered; as much as Harry missed poor Dobby, he wasn’t eager to have another house elf trying to “protect him.”  
“I really have missed this place,” Hermione smiled, brushing a frizzy lock of hair off of her dark-skinned forehead and behind her ear.  
“Sure you aren’t just saying that because you were grounded all summer?” Harry teased playfully, green eyes alight with laughter.  
“Well, that too.” the intelligent witch conceded. “My parents were terribly upset about me wiping their memories, even though I did it to keep them safe. Although, I think they mainly used the punishment as an excuse to spend more time with me, after all, I am 18 and fully legally entitled to make my own decisions in the muggle world. But they said that since they missed my entire seventeenth year, they retained their rights to baby me to make up for lost time, and oh, well they pulled the guilt card, and I wanted to see you all at the Burrow, I terribly did, so I’m sorry.” She said all of this very fast.  
“It’s okay ‘Mione,” Ron laughed, kissing her. Some things never changed.  
“So, what have you boys been up to all summer? Staying out of trouble, I hope.” As she said this, her brain caught up with her excitement and she noticed the metal loop in Harry’s mouth. “Harry James Potter!”  
“Oh this,” laughing pink lips sucked the ring into his mouth, “I’m surprised it took you this long to notice. It was just something a little crazy, you know, celebrate the war ending and all that.” He ran a hand through his ever-messy hair and tapped his new converse on the compartment floor, emerald eyes gleaming with good-natured mischief.  
Hermione just shot him a fondly exasperated look and began to make the usual pre-term idle conversation. “I hear Professor Snape has recovered enough to teach potions again this term.”  
“If they’d only been one minute later with that anti-venom.” Ron grumbled half-heartedly.  
“RONALD!” Hermione screeched, and Harry shrank back into the corner. He’d faced a drunk uncle with a whisky belt in one hand and a knotted cord in the other more times than he cared to count, and killed a dark lord three months earlier, but even he knew not to get in the middle of Granger Danger. “Professor Snape is a human being, and he has people who care about him! Just imagine how you’d feel if Fred hadn’t dodged that killing curse.”  
Ron looked contrite and somewhat horrified even as he assured his girlfriend he was kidding, and Harry rejoined the conversation, taking a box of chocolate frogs out of the expanded pocket of his skinny jeans.  
“Ugh, I’ve got another me,” he grumbled, sending the Harry Potter card to the nearby rubbish bin with a flick of his wrist.  
Hermione, for some reason Harry couldn’t fathom, looked as if someone had just slapped her in the face with a previously undiscovered spell.  
“Harry, when did you learn to do wandless magic?” she asked, her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide.  
“What are you on about, ‘Mione? I didn’t even open a book this summer.” His joke went unnoticed by all, which was unsurprising as even the guy who told it was confused.  
“Your wand is in your pocket, and yet you still banished the chocolate frog card, you numbskull.” Her discomfiture was showing, she rarely insulted the boys in such a manner.  
“It was a perfectly good card, too.” The resident Weasley seemed a little insulted that his best mate was so dismissive of what Ron considered his greatest achievement. Hermione smacked him on the bicep so he would shut up.  
“Harry, you shouldn’t be able to “get” something like wandless magic, especially without realizing you’re doing it!”  
“I’m sure there’s an explanation, Mia. Wizard’s cores mature in early adulthood, as I’m sure you know.”  
“Not to this extent. I’ve tried a few wandless spells and the best I can do is make a feather shake a bit instead of levitate, and I’m older than you and a female, which means my magic would have matured and stabilized faster than yours.”  
“Huh. Well, you can use me as your magical experiment later, Hermione.” He said, knowing exactly what would be flying through her head at the moment, but otherwise dismissing the issue. He was too happy to let anything ruffle him now.  
The witch didn’t seem entirely happy with that answer, but allowed the subject to stray to their recent apparation tests. Ron had finally passes on his third try after overshooting the mark by half a mile and landing in a muddy puzzle and then splinching off one nostril (a new one, apparently), while Harry had passes on the first go but promptly sicked up upon reaching his destination. He found apparating on his own to be even more nauseating than side along, and doubted he would use it too much if he could avoid it. Didn’t help the story made it into the Prophet. Merlin’s saggy left nut, these wizards needed to get a life!  
Pulling into Hogsmeade was as gratifying as ever, although his excitement was dampened a little when he saw how many students were paying attention to the thestrals. So many lost…  
Putting the war out of his mind for the moment, he smiled as he heard the first years exclaim at their first sight of the castle. Wait, how could he hear that? He scrunched up his face in confusion for a moment, but if there was one thing Harry Potter was good at, it was being completely oblivious to anything that did not pertain to keeping himself alive. So, when Trevor came sailing awkwardly against the window of the carriage, the green-eyed boy laughed and casually banished the glass to bring the toad inside, not realizing he once again hadn’t reached for his wand, or seeing Hermione’s eyes bug out once again behind him.  
“Here’s your toad, Nev,” he chuckled when they reached the castle, as Neville mumbled something about being killing a snake yet being unable to keep track of a toad while aforementioned amphibian hopped onto Luna’s head as she smiled serenely.  
“Your aura is different, Harry Potter,” the blond mentioned whimsically while grabbing Neville’s hand.  
“Well, I made a few changes over the summer,” he smiled, pulling the lip ring between his teeth again and fingering the hem of his t-shirt. Neville idly wondered what Guns N’ Roses was but figured it was some kind of muggle band. Meanwhile, Luna shared a glance with Hermione that showed that his appearance wasn’t what she meant, and for once the other girl was completely in agreement with her.


	2. Still not titling chapters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You know the story summary, do I have to waste time on this shit?

“As there are so few students coming back for the ‘eighth year make-up program,’ you will all be sharing one dormitory in the-third floor corridor on the right-hand side.” McGonagall said all this with the no-nonsense air anyone from second year up knew to expect from her, and there were no incongruous words thrown anywhere in her speech, yet the student body looked at her as if she were eating lemon drops and wearing a flowered bonnet. Put the Gryffindor’s with the Slytherin’s. Was she mad? Snape, still looking a bit peaky but otherwise alive and as well as Snape could be, certainly seemed to think so. Pansy looked as though someone has just told her she’d be marrying the giant squid. Blaise looked like Christmas had come early (correction: he looked as though the Grinch had been told Christmas had come early and was given free rein to consolidate his Christmas crime empire). Draco, curiously enough, did not cry out in outrage but has an indecipherable look in his mercury eyes as he surreptitiously stared at Harry. You wouldn’t think that Ron and Pansy Parkinson would ever agree on anything, but the look on his face in response to the proclamation mirrored hers to a tee. Hannah Abbot, Hermione, and Susan Bones shared a benignly resigned countenance, as though they were prepared to spend an entire year smiling tersely through the chaos. Lavender Brown, for a change, couldn’t be bothered either way. Despite the heavy scarring on her face, her newly amber eyes gleamed with the hard confidence of one who has been given no choice but to adapt to a life-changing situation thrust upon them. She had cut of her long curls and only her bangs were left long to swoop down upon her forehead, the same rich coffee color as Hermione’s. She wore no makeup save the dark sweep of kohl to accentuate her lupine eyes, and her muscles were lithe and toned under her uniform. Harry, who for his part couldn’t care one way or the other about who he would room with after all he had seen in the past year and his life in general, (although he did look over at Malfoy with a neutral but curious look on his face) couldn’t help but observe Lavender curiously, as her quiet and confident presence seemed to draw more attention than it ever did simply because of the sheer contrast to her previous frivolous teenage giggly gossip. Dean and Seamus were too busy snogging to care either, and while the headmistress/transfiguration teacher saw, she couldn’t be bothered to stop their eager affection if it meant that they joined the small minority who weren’t drowning the hall in noise.   
“This arrangement is final, so you may feel how you like about it, but you shall not engage in petty squabbling or some such nonsense. All returning eighth-year students will take classes with the N.E.W.T. level seventh years, and while you will still have your house affiliation, as well as the ability to win or lose points for the cup, you shall not be permitted to join the quidditch team, as it would disadvantage the mainstream student body. This repeat program is a valuable opportunity that is not mandatory on the school’s part, as most of the pupils less involved in the war still managed to take and pass their exams, so you shall treat it as such, or you will find the privilege revoked. Also, the Forbidden Forest is, as always, strictly forbidden without express permission and a faculty escort. Anyone wishing to go into the forest must have a good reason and no requests will be considered outside of valuable educational opportunities for students who are of age. Such requests must go through me before the task is undertaken regardless of which faculty member you are going with. It shall not, and I repeat shall not, be used as a disciplinary method.” Here she glared daggers at Filch.   
With that final announcement, she dismissed them, asking Professor Snape to show the eighth years to their dormitories. Professor Slughorn had taken over as head of Slytherin for the incoming school year, as it was decided that Severus’ potions responsibilities were quite enough while he was still recovering from Nagini’s attack (“was decided” meant that Pomphrey had threatened to tie him to a bed all year if he overstressed himself and “that lazy slug” could very well handle one more term of simply overseeing the little snakes before he went back to his cushy retirement and his sugared pineapple.”).   
“Gone rogue on us, Potter?” he sneered, starting in on Harry as usual, but it lacked the customary venom that he normally used, though whether that was because Harry had sent his Patronus to alert Poppy of his condition, thereby saving the potion master’s life, or whether the boy had gotten contacts and therefore his vivid green eyes were unobstructed even the man himself couldn’t say.   
“Maybe I’ve changed my look a tad, professor, but I’m not planning on trying to start another wizarding revolution.” He worried his lip ring again. “You and I both know how much time we all put into quelling the last one.” And then he caught the professor off guard by actually smiling at him brilliantly. They reached the newly created dorms and all filed in, Harry throwing off Snape even more by saying “see you in Potions, professor,” his eyes alight as if the effort Severus had put into the war somehow redeemed him for being a terrible man and inadvertently causing the death of his mother. Snape tried to scoff at him, but he couldn’t seem to. “Damn Potter brat,” he grumbled mentally as he stalked moodily down to his own chambers.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Read it if you wanna know that badly!

Morning dawned bright and early on September 2, and only Harry seemed chipper and ready to face the day, having never slept past 9 in his life, and even that was only a few times. This was much to the consternation of Blaise, Draco, Neville, and Ron.   
“Are you always this much of a morning person?” Malfoy grumbled, and it seemed nothing roused teenaged boys together as a common enmity against the dawn, because all of the others mumbled their assent.   
“He is.” Ron and Neville moaned dejectedly in unison.   
“Well, I was always up before everyone else to make breakfast for the Dursley’s, so it sorta became a habit, I.” Harry smiled sheepishly.   
Nobody else seemed to think this was a satisfactory explanation. Draco looked positively aghast.  
“They used you like a house elf?!” If Harry wasn’t so surprised by his reaction, he would have laughed. The Malfoy scion looked like he could be on a muggle soap opera, the drama queen.   
“Well, no, I mean… it’s like, I had to earn my keep, ya know? I wasn’t their kid, and I was just dropped off on their doorstep, so it’s not like they had any reason to like me.”   
“They dropped you on the doorstep?!” four voices yelled out at once. Ron looked hurt that Harry had never said anything before.   
“I’m sure Dumbledore put warming charms on me, and we had just come out of a war. He probably had more important things to worry about.”   
“Yeah, leave a defenseless baby on the doorstep in the middle of the night and go out and party, forget the fact that the cause of celebration is probably freezing his baby arse off.” Blaise snorted derisively.   
“Look, it’s all in the past, can we just forget it? I’m fine, aren’t I?” And that might have been the last of it as Harry pulled off his pajama top, if he hadn’t forgotten to put his glamours back on. The rest of the room froze as the took in the grotesque network of knotted scars across his back, upper arms, and lower legs. Without the glamours to hide his scars, his tattoo was stretched in odd proportions over his marred skin. The inked horntail seemed to pick up its owner’s agitation, as it blew tattooed flames across the raw pink tissue.   
“Bloody buggering fuck! I forgot the glamours, didn’t I?” The room breaking out in noise was all the answer he needed.   
“They beat you?!” Draco fucking Malfoy, of all people, was showing outrage on Harry Potter’s behalf, and it didn’t make his face heat up with shame like he thought it would. It almost felt… nice. Although the same couldn’t be said for the expressions of Ron, Neville, and even Blaise, who were looking at him like he was a puppy that had been kicked and left in the snow to die. Harry could have laughed at the absurdity of it all. Seven years of hiding it from his friends (and everyone else, even when he was in class and the wounds were oh-so-fresh and painful the first few weeks of term) and now it was out from one careless morning’s activities. Instead, he growled, a predatory noise coming from deep within his throat that had Draco Malfoy shivering in fear and something oddly like exhilaration (not that Harry noticed, of course). Harry hated pity, hated it with a passion worse than actually being beaten or nearly murdered (or actually murdered, not too long ago). Bloody fucking hell.   
“I’m bloody fine!” he yelled, magic coming off him in waves.   
“Harry, you don’t get it. There’s a reason people don’t beat magical children. It could damage their magic.” Neville looked him in the eye, speaking cautiously but confidently.   
Harry summoned his school robes to his side, wandlessly and wordlessly.   
“Well, as you can see, my magic is also fine.” He ground out firmly, ignoring the awestruck glances of everyone in the room, even his best mate, who had seen it the day before. He didn’t give anyone a chance to object. “Not a word of this leaves this room, do you hear me?” his voice was calm, quiet, but with an edge like polished steel, and his eyes actually flashed a dark, hard grey for a moment. No one dared argue, although Ron and Neville decided that they would be talking to him later, if only because Hermione needed to know. The conversation apparently over, the chosen one casually waved his hand to reapply the glamours and left the room, saying he was going to breakfast and they could follow when they were ready if they wanted.   
For a long, tense moment, the silence crushed the remaining inhabitants of the room like a thick layer of earth, trying to suffocate them and bury them alive. They all looked at each other cautiously, calculating. One thing was certain, they would at least be civil to each other after this. No matter who, the physical act of touching a wizarding child in malice was an insult to even the worst sort of wizards, who used magical punishment even if they were so intent on abusing a fellow magical. Knowing what they did, they Slytherins and Gryffindor’s were, at the very least, in an uneasy sort of truth as they gathered in a sort of silent solidarity around the boy-who-lived (twice, not that anyone outside of the death eater circle knew, Harry kept the fact that he had actually been hit with the killing curse in the forest to himself).   
“Well,” Blaise said finally, “I think we ought to go down to breakfast.” And thus, the matter became the elephant in the room.


	4. That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet (seriously, stop asking for names and read the damn chapter).

Meanwhile, Harry was in the Great Hall across from Seamus and Dean (who resided in the next dorm over with two Hufflepuff lads) next to Hermione and Lavender, who was daintily nibbling at pieces of raw beef alongside her eggs. Harry glanced at her.   
“Problem, Potter?” she raised one delicate eyebrow, and the cool confidence in her tone threw Harry off for a moment.   
“No, course not. Just curious. Remy loves it, and since Teddy started eating solid food he does too. Grosses Tonks out. Does it taste like sushi?”  
“Wanna see for yourself?” the girl smirked, fully expecting Harry to back down. He didn’t of course. When one has had to eat from the neighborhood rubbish bins just to survive the punishments of one’s relatives, one does not tend to be picky.   
The green-eyed wizard smirked, reached over, and popped a piece into his mouth. “Huh, kinda tangy, like metallic-ish.”  
Lavender rolled her eyes. “That would be blood, Harry.”   
Harry rolled his eyes right back and quipped sarcastically, “no shit Sherlock! I thought it was pumpkin juice.”  
A hint of confusion entered those amber eyes as the she-wolf scrunched her brows. “Who in the bloody blazes is Sherlock?”  
Harry laughed. “He’s a muggle detective. Kind of like an independent auror,” he answered in anticipation to her next question. “He was a big thing back in the 1800’s. It was a book series, everyone was batty about them. Drove the poor writer insane bugging him to write more and more. They’re good, I’ve read them. They’ve made a couple films about him too. Those are kind of like memories in a pensieve, acted out like in a play and recorded to put on a screen.”  
“Muggles are pretty interesting people.” The girl commented idly in response, storing the knowledge away for later as McGonagall came around with their schedules. Harry looked down at his. “Potions, CoMC, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology, and ugh, Divination.”   
“Divination’s not all bad.” Lavender defended, glaring slightly.  
“I know, it’s just Trelawney can be a bit batty.”   
Lavender sighed. “I’ll give you that,” she conceded, “she has some skill, but she tends to embellish what she doesn’t know. I know that now; the wolf sense sharpens my inner eye quite a bit. Although, to her credit, you did have a grimm following you third year, it just wasn’t in the sense she thought.”   
“I’ll keep that in mind,” he chuckled slightly, then sobered. “I just really don’t want another prophecy popping up to try to screw with my life. Although at this point, I’d probably just tell fate or destiny or whatever to fuck off.”   
If only he knew what was coming and how impossible that would be.


	5. I'm so tired of being asked for the fucking title.

Care of Magical Creatures with Hagrid always brought a smile to Harry’s face, even when they were dealing with the more… unsavory types of creatures. But that didn’t appear to be so today as a herd of thestrals waited regally by the hut. As it was a N.E.W.T level class and nearly everyone had been here for the war, there were only one or two lucky students that couldn’t see them.   
What rather surprised not only Harry, but everyone in the class, including Hagrid, was when the lead thestral strode up to him and kneeled before him. “Greetings, your grace,” a soothing voice said in undulating tones.   
“What the bloody hell?” he jumped as the other thestrals kneeled.   
Hagrid looked by turns shocked and excited. “You can speak to ‘em, ‘Arry!” he boomed, causing the cabbages to shake in their patch. “’Ere’s never been summun’ who could do that before!”   
Harry sighed. “So that wasn’t English.” He stated more than asked, glancing around at the other students for confirmation. Hermione shook her head and reached over to snap Ron’s mouth shut from where it was hanging open in surprise.   
“Great,” he groaned, “bloody parseltongue all over again.” Whatever theory Dumbledore had about his snake-speaking abilities coming from the horcrux wasn’t true, as Harry could still carry on lovely little chats with his serpentine friends. He didn’t mind that bit overmuch, snakes were actually wonderful conversationalists, it was just one more thing people stared at him for. Annoying.   
“Don’t worry, milord, you will find us far more suitable company than those scaly nuisances,” the lead thestral replied, while a little garden snake near the hut started hissing angrily as Harry picked him up, switching seamlessly to parseltongue to reassure the creature he wasn’t picking favorites. He then turned back to the thestral.   
“What’s the deal with all the royal titles?” he asked, almost afraid to know the answer.  
“I am afraid I am not at liberty to tell your highness. The time will come when it shall be revealed.”  
Harry threw up his hands and let the little snake slither up and curl around his head like a crown. “I’m done with this madness today. I’m out. See you all in potions.” He then walked away, the little snake hissing contentedly from atop his perch of messy hair, glad the snake speaker and apparent prince of something-or-another had decided to let him stick around.   
“Those things must not be very good conversation,” a Hufflepuff girl joked to try to break the tension as the class watched Harry stomp away in bewilderment.


	6. The one where I was away all weekend so am just now giving you the sugar.

Severus Snape sat at his desk grading the second years’ summer assignments (disdainfully mediocre quality, in his opinion) while he waited for his N.E.W.T. class (at least Minerva had the sense to put the Slytherin and Ravenclaw classes together instead of putting his snakes with the Gryffindor brats). He wished that he could have had his upper years first, as bumbling little twelve-year-old’s first thing in the morning made him want to drown himself in a bottle of firewhiskey, which unfortunately wasn’t socially acceptable before lunch. Then he remembered that thanks to Slughorn accepting any lackluster student that managed an E on their O.W.L’s into his N.E.W.T class, he was stuck teaching Harry-bloody-Potter, who he was even more irritated with because he couldn’t seem to garner the same animosity towards the brat that he once had. Speak of the devil…  
The little (and he really was rather small for his age) wizarding heathen strode into the room, to a chair at a table in the middle of his dungeon, sat down, and opened a copy of the Great Gatsby (that was Lilly’s favorite, he remembered with a pang in his chest). Trying to rip his eyes away from the boy’s bright green eyes scanning the pages of his mother’s favorite novel, Severus tore his vision up to the Potter hair, hoping to gather some ire. That, of course, was forgotten when he noticed a little garden snake curled up atop the boy’s head. What was the child even doing here? CoMC wasn’t even over, and he knew the boy took that class because Hagrid wouldn’t shut his trap about the boy’s talent with animals at staff meetings.   
“Potter!” he barked, “what are you doing in my classroom so long before the period starts?”  
“I’m sorry sir,” Harry replied with what Snape hated to admit was a polite tone, “I left Care early because the thestrals were being rather irritating.”  
“If I remember correctly, you rode the thrice-damned creatures all the way to the ministry two years ago. They cannot possibly grate on your nerves that much.” Not as much as this child grates on mine, at least, the potions master thought irritably.   
“They’re just so bloody cryptic.” Potter grumbled.  
“Is that piece of metal in your lip infected, causing you delusions? Or do you simply need to learn basic vocabulary, Potter? A creature that doesn’t speak cannot possibly be cryptic.”  
“It’d be nice if that were the case. Damn things tried to talk my bloody ear off. Tea? You look knackered.” Potter was offering him tea? Did the boy think he could just summon it out of nowhere? And he did not look “knackered,” he was simply brooding. Yes, brooding.   
“And where do you plan to get tea, Potter? I will not have you calling one of your eccentric elf friends into my clean potions lab, so unless you can conjure a cup of Earl Gray out of the air, 10 points from Gryffindor for empty gestures.”  
The infuriating cretin simply waved his hand and a black crockery tea set appeared, complete with steaming black tea. “One lump or two?” the boy asked, taking his own cup off of the tray and levitating the rest of the ensemble over to the professor without even lifting a finger.  
Snape, for his part, simply looked gob smacked as tea and biscuits settled neatly next to his pile of half-graded essays. This went against all the laws of conjuration, dammit! The boy knew, too, as there was a small smirk tugging the corners of his lips, but he said nothing about it as he turned the page before remarking quietly, “nothing good ever comes from chasing the green light.”   
That surprisingly astute observation aside, the potions class filed in just as Severus finished his (very real) cup of tea, and as he felt far more rejuvenated than he should from hot water and herbs, he sniffed the cup and realized the brat had slipped him an energy potion. He did not need to be coddled! His mood went from furious to baffled as he watched his godson, Draco Malfoy of all people, sit down next to Harry looking decidedly uncomfortable.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all. Sorry about the long wait- I've been busy preparing for midterms (and watching historical documentaries, not gonna lie) and I've just now gotten around to posting some of the stuff I've written. I think I'll give you two chapters today since no one's been commenting demanding my head on a platter- what patience you lovely readers have! Anyway, today I just finished my mythology midterm (some of the stuff I've learned will be featuring in this story, hint, hint) and my muse finally started to work again. I have at least the next few chapters of the story roughly outlined in my head- but actually writing them is the difficulty. You see, my muse is like a basilisk, and she wakes up when she wants to and demands my attention, regardless of whether or not the timing is convenient. Anyway, without further adieu, the chamber has been opened (for now, my little brain-serpent is very picky lol).

Draco fidgeted as he filed in next to Har-Potter, wondering if he should attempt to start a casual conversation in light of the morning’s earth-shattering revelation. Ha- Potter- looked up at him, eyes guarded for a moment until he was apparently satisfied his contemporary wouldn’t try to bring it up. Then he just smiled and pulled out his cauldron from his expanded school bag and began deftly arranging their station.   
“I hope you don’t mind if we use my cauldron today. I’ve done a little experimentation and I’ve found that copper works a bit better than pewter for the volatile stuff in the curriculum.”  
“Yea, um, okay… sure.” Draco cursed himself mentally- he was talking like a plebian muggle, and it had only partly to do with this morning.   
“Cool- we’re brewing Draught of Living Death today, so if you’re more sensitive to fumes I have an extra scarf.” He pulled a black bandanna around his own nose.   
“Why on earth would I need one- I’ve never seen anyone wear a scarf over their face in the lab before.” Draco didn’t sneer as usual; his tone was simply curious.  
“I’m allergic to wormwood. The bandanna with an air-filtering charm makes the hives a little more manageable, and the cortisone is able to work a bit quicker after class this way.”  
“What is cortisone, that’s not a potion I’ve ever used?” Draco was curious as to when Potter had honed his potions skills so properly.  
Harry laughed a little. “It’s not really a potion- well, a muggle one, maybe. You get it at the muggle apothecaries. I’m also allergic to the dock leaves used in the itch relief potions.” He chuckled again and started setting out their ingredients.   
Over the next hour and a half, they managed to work in tandem to brew a flawless potion, and Draco wondered when Harry had acquired such competency in the subject. He moved with a natural confidence that suggested he knew what he was doing, and his timing for adding ingredients was perfect, despite the fact that he would break once in a while to surreptitiously scratch his arms or back. The blond wondered whether he should comment on it, but the Potter heir was being perfectly genial, and he didn’t want to disrupt what a pleasant repertoire they had established- curiously enough, he was enjoying himself immensely, and he didn’t want to go back to the tenseness of this morning by bringing up the raven-haired teen’s health- a sure way to make him snippety, apparently.   
However, by the time they brought up their sample, the other boy was squirming uncomfortably and the angry red bumps had spread to his hands. Draco chewed his lip as he contemplated his options, but as it turned out, Sev took the responsibility out of his hands.   
“Potter,” he yelped as the rest of the class filed out, “what is this?” he picked up one of the offending limbs.   
“Just a bit of an adverse reaction to wormwood, professor,” he answered sheepishly, scratching at the rash creeping up his neck. “I have stuff for it.” He brandished the garishly colored plastic bottle of medicated paste.   
“That rubbish won’t do a thing for hives like that, fool. Let me grab something from the back room.”   
“Sir, I- “  
“Am allergic to dock leaves, yes I figured. I have something that would work; your mother had the same problem.” Despite the fact that Harry couldn’t possibly be comfortable as his nails scrabbled at his side through his robes, his face lit up at the mention of his mum. Draco wondered at the squirming in his own insides as he saw Harry look genuinely happy- it wasn’t something he’d had the pleasure to see much (wait, he thought it was a pleasure to look at Potter’s face, where’d that come from?).  
His godfather came out of his private stores carrying a vial of lavender-colored goop, and Harry smiled gratefully as he reached for it.  
“No, you little twerp, I don’t trust you to put it on properly. Kindly remove your outer robe.”  
Harry’s face flashed with poorly-concealed panic for a moment, and Draco realized he probably wasn’t wearing the glamours- his robes would hide everything properly, and it would simply be a waste of energy to keep them up all day. But if he put them back up now, they would hide the rash as well, and Severus would be suspicious.   
“I could help him professor,” he put in quickly, and Harry shot him a look of such profound gratitude that Draco’s heart skipped a beat. Both of their hopes were quickly dashed, however.  
“Whatever nonsense you boys are going on about, cease at once. I don’t care if the boy has a tattoo or whatever it is young people are currently doing. Just. remove. your. robes. Potter.” He ground out, clearly having had enough for the day.   
Harry looked at Draco for advice, who nodded resignedly. Green eyes steeled in determination as he slipped off his outer robes and Draco looked away, not wanting to see such permanent evidence of human cruelty for the second time in a single day. He would probably have nightmares from the first.  
A vial shattered as Snape froze, looking at the gruesome combination of scarring that looked like it came from long hours of muggle torture sessions topped with furious hives slowly spreading down to his knees and calves from where they already had firm purchase on his neck, arms, and back, and Harry cast a quick reparo- he wasn’t going to wait hours for the cortisone to start to provide him with the bliss of an itch-free existence now that he’d laid himself bare for a man he was just starting to strike up an uneasy truce with. The potions professor took the vial in shaking fingers and began to apply the goop with cold professionalism as Harry sighed in relief and removed a hand from the shoulder he hadn’t realized he’d been itching furiously.   
They both gathered up their books as they suffered through another tense silence. “Well, professor, see you on Wednesday,” Harry said awkwardly. Snape just waved them off while mumbling something that only Harry’s curiously improving hearing picked up on as “bloody fucking Dursley’s,”  
“Oh, and Professor?” Harry asked as Snape looked over at him. “Please don’t hurt Dudley- he’s trying to change.” He remarked as he walked out the door, leaving Severus Snape to wonder when the boy had become so perceptive of his intentions.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys! Here's the promised second coming for the day. And lucky (or unlucky, depending how much I suck) for you, this is a long one with some action- one of my subplots has been put into motion. *rubs hands together whilst giggling maniacally.* Anyway, I hope you enjoy the harvest of my right cerebral hemisphere. ;)

Dinner in the Great Hall was turning out to be the most normal part of the day, Harry thought as he sat chatting amiably with his friends. Besides the fact that Ron and Neville seemed to be a little awkward around him, which he was sure would fade in time, it was a relaxing atmosphere.   
He chuckled as he read a letter from Remus. Apparently, the Weird Sisters concert Tonks went to the night before ended two hours later than scheduled, and the woman was absolutely exhausted, leaving Remus to attempt the cooking in their muggle kitchen. There were now eggs stains splattered all over the ceiling, and not even magical mess remover was doing any good. Honestly, what did you expect when you put two bachelors and a baby in the same house? It certainly wasn’t a normal marriage dynamic, with Remus unlikely to ever love romantically again (werewolves mate for life, and with Sirius gone- and hadn’t that been a shock- he had no desire for romantic entanglement) and Tonks who had never been and would never be romantically in love, but they made it work- albeit in separate bedrooms. Although Tonks did joke that they should do a sexual education seminar on the dangers of having experimental drunk sex with your best friend. “Figures the first and only time I’ll ever do it I get a kid,” she laughed, but she wasn’t fooling anyone, she adored her rainbow-haired progeny, you could see it in her eyes.   
After handing the included list of contraceptive charms (a marauder and a rebel put together had a destructive sense of humor) to Ron and Hermione, who could actually make use of them (not that he was going to think about that, mind you) and laughing at the way Ron’s ears went the color of his hair, he was surprised to see another owl fly through the window towards his plate. The Weasley’s had sent him a letter yesterday, and he had just read Remy’s and Tonks, so who could this be from?  
He had his answer when the grouchy-looking owl came down bearing the Gringott’s seal. Curious, he reached out and opened the envelope, and what he read made him want to facepalm for jinxing his peace by thinking about his peace.   
Dear Mr. Potter,  
Gringotts regrets not informing you sooner, but the war has made our  
business cycle a bit hectic. Therefore, as you are now of age, it is time  
that you come into your full financial and legal inheritance. You are the  
sole heir and, as of today, appointed Lord of the Houses, Potter, Black,   
Peverell, Gryffindor, and Slytherin, and are afforded all properties,   
assets, and heirlooms therein. Normally, it would be requested that you  
come to the bank to receive your heir rings and ensure that you are indeed  
the true heir, especially considering that you are Lord to two of the founding   
families, but a most curious thing happened as we were writing this letter.   
All of the rings came flying from their locations in respective high security   
vaults, merged themselves into one, and attached themselves to the envelope.  
Attempts to put them back resulted in electrocution, so it is assumed that the  
spirit of magic herself has decided upon your eligibility This has not been recorded happening since the very beginnings of the goblin nation. Please   
note that as such, there is no option to refuse your duties. In fact, I would wager the ring has already settled itself on your finger. Also, the next   
meeting of the Wizengamot is next Tuesday, and while I do not normally  
get involved in wizarding politics, you have about half of the seats with   
the combination of the houses equaling thirty votes, so I would strongly   
advise attending or appointing proxies for the time being.   
May your gold ever flow (and with the amount in your vaults I can assure you it will),   
Managing Director Ragnok  
(P.S. To elect to sport a ring from a certain house, simply say the name and the face will change).

 

To say that Harry was surprised would have been an understatement as he looked down at his hands to see, sure enough, and ornate ring on his right ring finger, with the Potter crest currently asserting its claim. Just to test, he whispered “Gryffindor,” and the face changed to the red and gold insignia currently hanging above the table. Oh Merlin.   
“Harry, mate, what’s wrong?” Ron asked him, especially concerned for the friend he considered a brother after finding out about his childhood. He wordlessly handed him the letter. Ron’s face took on the same look as Harry’s still sported. “Bloody Hell!”  
“I thought all I had was my trust fund,” the raven-haired teen remarked. “And Slytherin, where’d that come from?”  
“It was probably through the Perevell’s,” Hermione, who had been reading over Ron’s shoulder, jumped in. “They were one of the most notable families before the founders, the ancestors of both of the males, I’d wager, and there were three brothers.”  
Harry worried his best friend might balk at this knowledge, but he simply smiled. “He does have the eye color for it.”  
“You’re not mad?” the five-times-Lord (and doesn’t that take some getting used to?) ventured.   
“If you’d asked me a year ago, I probably would have been, but I’ve grown since then. Some of them are actually pretty decent, actually. We were talking after you left this morning (here a frown crossed his face, but he hid it as Hermione glanced at him) and Blaise is actually pretty funny. Some of his pranks ideas could rival Fred and George. Besides, we’ve all been through a war. House rivalries seem kind of stupid when you think of it.” He thought for a second. “Except for Quidditch,” he added hastily.   
Hermione had a proud look in her chocolate eyes as she smiled at her boyfriend. “I’m not sure what surprises me more: the fact that you matured so much or the fact that you stopped shoveling food in your mouth long enough to make that speech.”   
“’Mione, you made a joke!” Ron exclaimed as he kissed her.   
“Well, while you guys are doing that, I am going to get some professional advice,” Harry told them, feeling slightly more at ease due to the antics of his friends as he headed towards the green and silver table.   
Guarded eyes watched him with restrained curiosity as he made his way towards the eight year Snakes. “Malfoy, er, um, Draco?”  
“What can I do for you, Po-Harry?” the Malfoy heir returned, tone a little warmer than simple politeness dictated.   
“May I sit? I could use your…guidance, on a matter.”  
“Of course,” the blonde moved over to create a space between himself and Pansy that Harry quickly filled.   
“Would you like to fill a plate?” Harry declined, saying he’d already eaten his fill, which was true. The Dursley’s habit of starving him had left him with a diminished appetite that had never really improved all that much, meaning that although he’d only managed half of what Hermione had heaped onto his plate before the Gringotts owl arrived, he was still quite full.   
The little garden snake from CoMC poked his head out from beneath his robes. Pansy screeched and skittered to the side a little.   
“Oh, I’m sorry Pan- er, Miss Parkinson. He just sort of joined me earlier. To be honest, I’d kind of forgotten he was there.   
The slightly pug-faced girl took a deep breath and regained his composure. “It’s alright Potter, it just startled me, was all. I actually don’t mind snakes as long as they aren’t trying to kill me. What’s his name?”   
“You know, I’m not sure. Let me ask him.” He began a conversation in Parseltongue that had everyone at the table looking at him in awe. Harry thought it was nice to have the talent actually appreciated for once.   
“He says he doesn’t have a name. Says they just call him snake.” Serpents had an… interesting culture.   
“Well that won’t do!” Pansy looked scandalized. “Give him here and let me look at him, we’re going to fix that.” Harry had the snake slither off of his arm and onto Pansy’s, who immediately started coo-ing at him while trying to think of a suitable title.   
“Merlin, Potter!” Draco suddenly exclaimed as he finished reading the letter. He looked quite shaken. The other students began asking him what was the matter, so after a quick nod from Harry, the blond read the letter again, aloud this time.   
A riot of noise broke out from the 7th and 8th year students close enough to hear.   
“My god, so you really are the heir of Slytherin!” Theodore Nott exclaimed.   
“Well, in a sense, I suppose I am. But I was not the one petrifying students second year. Damn basilisk almost took my bloody arm off with that fang.” He rubbed the scar on his elbow as everyone around him looked absolutely stunned.   
“It was a basilisk!”  
“It bit you!”  
“You really did go down into the chamber!”  
Harry honestly looked very confused. He didn’t quite realize how out of the loop everyone was.   
“Did they honestly not tell you guys anything?” he asked his classmates.   
“Nope, they just said everything was worked out and left it at that. All we had to go on was rumors.”   
Well, Harry thought, we’ll have to fix that. So, he told them all the real story of second year, cleverly leaving out the bits about Ginny. When he finished, Draco looked whiter than normal, if that was even possible.   
“That diary was a horcrux?!” he whisper-shouted, his voice hoarse and shaking. “Oh, god, I knew my father,” he spat the word with disdain, “was planning something, he always was, but I thought he was bluffing. I didn’t realize he was behind the whole thing. Oh Merlin.” At some of the looks he was getting from his other classmates, he snapped.   
“I didn’t want to take the dark mark, you know! I may have been a bigoted little shit until a few months ago, but I was never interested in torturing and killing, not in reality. Lucius promised me to V-Voldemort when I was born, and he made me take it on my sixteenth birthday. It was either take it or watch the Dark Lord kill my mother!”  
“He probably would have killed you. Your mother is actually a very capable woman. I’ve seen her lie to Moldyshorts and get away with it. She saved my life in the forest that day.”  
“Mum lied to him?!” Draco asked as the others snickered at the insulting name for Voldemort (anyone who had actually supported him as more than just familial necessity was no longer at this school, but in Azkaban). “Oh my gods, do tell.”  
Harry realized at that point he had dug himself a very deep hole. He would now have to actually admit that he survived the killing curse, but he had got himself this far, and they all deserved answers. This war hurt them too.   
“Well, it was in the forest after I’d been hit with the killing curse.” He held up a hand to stop the gasps. “Let’s just say that Voldemort… made some mistakes with the curse on me, through no talent of my own, mind you (he didn’t yet realize this was a lie). So I was dead for a few minutes, but I came back. I still had work to do- I’ll go into the details later. Anyway, Riddle asked your mum to check and make sure I was actually dead, which by this point I wasn’t. I thought for sure that was it, you know? Three times is a bit much to ask, yeah? But your mum just asked if you were alive, and I told her you were, and then your mum looked the bastard in the eye and lied through her teeth so she could get to you. However much your dad sucks, Dray,” he was so into the story he didn’t notice the nickname casually slip off his tongue, “you’re your mother’s whole world.”   
“That’s so sweet!” all the girls cooed in unison, while the guys wanted to know more about the killing curse predicament.   
“Boys, boys, the man’s talked enough for one day. He did come over here for a reason you know. By the way, Potter, could you ask Sal if he would mind if I kept him?”  
“Sal?” Blaise asked, smirking.   
“Yes, doofus, as in Salazar Slytherin? Anyway, Harry, what does he say?”  
“Well, I can already hear him hissing at me to say yes, but I don’t need to ask him, I can see the familiar bond already.”  
“You can see the familiar bond?” Millicent asked, skeptical.   
“Well yeah, can’t everybody? You know, wizards can sense magic, and all that?”  
“Honestly Potter, only you would have mage sight and not realize it was rare! There hasn’t been someone who could sense or see ambient magic since Dumbledore.”  
“Oh,” Harry intoned, looking uncertain. “I was wondering why no one else got a headache first year from all the buzzing and colors and stuff in the castle. I figured it was just because most of you grew up with it.”   
“You know, I really can’t see why we hated you. You’re so obliviously adorable, like a retarded kneazle.”   
“Thanks, I guess,” Harry quirked an eyebrow, half smiling and half glaring at Pansy. These kids weren’t so bad. It was cool to see how close they were to each other, although it made sense they’d have to be, with all the prejudice from the other houses.   
“Don’t mention it hun,” she drawled, wiggling the fingers on the hand that wasn’t holding Sal in a sarcastic flirting motion.   
“Anyway, Draco, do you think you could teach me this whole… politic-y thing. As it stands right now, I think I’d make a better house elf than a lord.”  
The other boy’s face took on a pained countenance at the reminder of the morning’s horrors, but he simply faked the signature raised eyebrow supercility.  
“Politic-y thing? Really Gryffindork? Gods of old, you need my help. Meet me in the library during free period tomorrow and I’ll teach you the things you need to know so you don’t accidentally destroy our society.”   
Harry was about to express his thanks when Snape came up to him. “Ah, Potter, so nice to see you sitting at my table,” he drawled. “If you’re quite done entertaining the masses, I’d like to see you in my office.” The tone of his voice made it clear it was not a request.   
“Oh, professor, do leave him in one piece, would you? We’re just starting to like him.” How in Merlin had Harry never realized Pansy was as much of a sarcastic asshole as he was? They’d get along famously. Harry mused as he got up to follow the professor, somewhat uncertain.


	9. Announcement

Hey guys! I'm sorry this isn't a chapter- I'm just letting you know I'm still alive and this story is alive and well. I'm sorry updates are a bit sparse right now- I have a lot going on. Creative writing workshops for final pieces are going on and bassy (my muse, I named her because she's like a basilisk that goes dormant for a long time and then pops up randomly demanding human sacrifices) isn't cooperating for this story right now. But I have a plan, and you will get more. Please don't abandon hope, because I'm just really busy right now with school and personal life and I think about all you readers and your awesome support all the time.


	10. 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bassy is being agreeable (for now) so here's another chapter.

Harry shadowed the taller man’s footsteps as they made their way down to his office in the dungeon. He bade him sit at the chair in front of his desk, which Harry idly noticed was softer and more comfortable than the one that was there the last time he’d been. The professor looked strangely grave, but in a way that lacked malice. Harry hoped he wasn’t about to get the pity spiel again, not from Snape of all people.   
“Sir, if this is about whatever you have in mind for the Dursley’s, it’s none of my business. I won’t say anything; technically I know nothing.”  
“Very Slytherin technique, Mr. Potter,” Harry tried not to laugh as he imagined the face the man would make if he found out just how Slytherin he really was.   
The continued drone of the deep baritone drew him back to the present. “However, I did not call you here to discuss my plans for those things. I merely want to run a full health scan, both to ensure that there is no lasting damage from your… upbringing, and that you have no further allergies to any of the ingredients we will work with this year.”  
“Really professor, that’s not-“ but he was cut off.   
“Either I do it or Poppy does, and I can assure you she would be far more of a blubbering mess, especially considering your skill in hiding it all these years.” Here he shot the boy a sharp look.   
“Alright, alright. Just get it over with.” Harry grumbled, choosing the lesser of (in this case) two evils.   
Severus waved his wand over the Lord’s (god, still not sinking in) head in a complicated motion and a piece of parchment emerged and began writing on itself. After an awkward twenty minutes, in which Harry composed a quirky little drumbeat on the desk, which Snape oddly enough did not reprimand him for, the parchment stopped just as it bumped against the closed door of the office.  
“My gods boy, how have you not keeled over dead by now?” the potions master barked, face white as the frost on the window panes.   
“I think you might be exaggerating just a little.” This was the wrong thing to say.   
“I do not exaggerate, you imbecile! In addition to the lacerations I discovered earlier, you are STILL severely malnourished two years after the fact, you have the immune system of an A.I.D.S patient, it’s a miracle some of your vital organs are still functioning, and that’s just the first six inches of the list! And for the love of Merlin, are you allergic to everything that grows? It’s no wonder your grades were so abysmal in my class with these issues, and it’s a miracle you are doing well this year. I’ve never seen such a perfect Draught of Living Death brewed by someone who came out of it looking like they were rolled in poison ivy.”  
“Let me see the allergens list,” the chosen one said, digging out a quill. He peered down his nose at the paper. “God, you’re overreacting. These ten,” he rapidly circled some of the scribbles, “are barely anything… itchy eyes, runny nose, the occasional cough, that sort of thing. Perfectly manageable.” He continued marking up the list, “these four are the ones that give me hives. Still manageable.” He put check marks to the left of the indicated plants. “And these five-“ he made decisive underlining motions, “are the only ones that could be a bit of a problem- my throat tends to swell up a bit if I get too close, but the only real risk of asphyxiation would be if I were to breath the fumes or ingest them.”   
“Well, gee, I wonder what I was so worried for! You’re only incapacitated by half the damn curriculum!”   
“Look, can we just calm down for a moment?”   
“No we cannot!” Harry seriously contemplated the merits of a Slytherin run soap opera. “You cannot possibly take this class if there’s a risk of you dropping dead every five minutes, and that’s not even beginning to get into the facts that you will need immune supplements, have to get half your bones reset because they’ve healed badly from being broken by gods-know-what, and I will have to begin working on a modified version of the nutrient potion so you can stop looking like a walking skeleton without wheezing from bloody wheatgrass poisoning!”   
“Do we really have to do all this? I mean, I’m fine.”  
“If I hear that word one more time-“ Harry continued regardless.   
“And you need potions for like, every career that I’m interested in. Even if I have to deal with the whole politics business, I’d still like to do something that makes me happy.   
“We’ll talk about this in the morning. I may be able to make something like a muggle inhaler and an epi-pen so you can still attend class, and modify the curriculum so you don’t have to work with the high-risk ingredients. And if you were to put more of that salve on before every class, it should help nullify the affects. As for your other health issues- I am going to need outside help.” Snape suddenly looked very tired.  
“But you promised you wouldn’t go to Madam Pomphrey! And you can’t take on all that extra stuff- you were attacked by Nagini three months ago! Can’t we pretend this never happened and go on like before?” Harry may have been whining a bit, but it had been a ridiculously long day for the start of term, or any time really.   
“No we cannot continue to endanger your safety, brat, and it was not my intention to bring in the mediwitch, but I made a far older promise to your mother to protect you- which I have done a terrible job keeping-apparently! Now get out of my office!”   
As Harry got up to do as instructed, sensing the argument was lost, the floo flared up with McGonagall asking for her student.   
“And into McGonagall’s!” Snape finished, shooing Harry towards the fireplace as if he were made of glass.


	11. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys! I've actually got a few new chapters for you today- Bassy went crazy! I think she gave me some pity inspiration; she probably felt bad that my period tried to kill me lmao. Anyway, please enjoy and let me know what you think- or just start a conversation with me in the comments. I love you guys!

“You wanted to see me, Headmistress.” He remarked, coughing slightly and brushing soot off his robes.   
“Well, yes dear, and call me Minerva. Tea?” that’s it- the world had gone mad! What the bloody hell? Was Bellatrix Lestrange going to pop up next, apologizing for killing his godfather and making a matronly fuss over how much he’d grown? He wouldn’t be surprised at this point.   
“No thank you head- Minerva,” he finished lamely, voicing none of his thoughts. He was being ridiculous anyway- he really hadn’t grown much since the last time he saw Bellatrix.   
“Now, what can I help you with?”  
“Well, you know that the new DADA teacher was supposed to arrive next week?”  
“Yes…” he prodded, wondering where this was going.  
“Well, it turns out she’s eloped and run away to Canada. Her resignation owl just arrived. And since everyone else is still slightly wary of the curse on the position, well, I was wondering if you could teach it?”  
“What?!” Harry all but shouted.  
“We’d put you on the payroll.” Minerva added, as if that was the problem. Alright- bring on Lucius Malfoy wearing a tutu and baking (non-poisoned) cookies- this was absurd. He hadn’t even passed his N.E.W.T.’s yet!  
“But I haven’t even passed my N.E.W.T.’s yet!”  
“You killed a dark lord, as Minister Bones reminded me when I brought up my predicament. It was actually her suggestion that I ask you this. And we both figure that freeing the world from certain destruction is good enough to pass your certification.” She slid over an official looking document, like a shorter version of the O.W.L. reports, with DADA at the top and the word “Outstanding,” underneath in flashing gold letters. Harry needed to go to bed.   
“Harry, poppet, I know it’s a lot to ask, but we’re just getting things up and running again, and I can’t take on any extra responsibilities right now- I’m already teaching Transfiguration on top of running the school. It would only be for the year, unless you want to continue after graduation, and I will talk to the teachers about cutting you some slack with other responsibilities.” As Harry looked into the tired face of a woman who had seen too much and suffered too much, who had more than earned a quiet retirement but was here helping pull the community back together as a matter of duty, a woman who was like family to him and had done everything she could to protect and care for him, who was the first one to scream, loudly and terribly, when she saw his body in Hagrid’s arms, the woman who he cared about so fiercely that he was willing to cast an unforgivable at the first sign of disrespect, he found himself saying one thing.   
“I’ll do it.”   
“Oh, thank you Harry, you’ve done far more than you ever should have had to for all of us.” For me, she added in her head. “I will send you a schedule for staff meetings in the morning and see about getting you an office, and we can negotiate your salary when-“  
“On one condition.” He continued. “You will not pay me. I have more than enough in my vaults for 100 lifetimes. Use the money to go on a relaxing holiday at the end of term.”   
“I can see you’re serious.” The tabby animagus sounded resigned. “Well, off to bed, I suppose, and it's only the first week of classes anyway, so you don't have to stress too much about your first few lessons. I’ll make the announcement at breakfast.” Harry softened at her consideration, smiling gently at her as he exited the office.


	12. 12

Harry woke up the next morning feeling rested, that is until the recollection of the insanity that was yesterday came crashing down on him full force. He took a deep breath. It was fine- His whole dorm knew about the abuse he suffered at the Dursley’s, he could talk to death horses, he was now a wealthy political figure and the lord of a number of powerful families, Snape found out about all the resulting health issues from his childhood and was now acting, in his own way, like some greasy mother hen (bat? Bat-hen?), and, oh yeah, he was supposed to be a professor to his peers. No biggie, he thought, still taking deep breaths and trying not to panic. Well, he might as well at least tell his dorm mates about his “promotion,” so there would be slightly less noise in the hall. He would have done it last night, but he was so tired he fell asleep as soon as he sat down on his four-poster. Oh well, he wasn’t about to die anymore (unless, perhaps, you were to ask Snape), so it’s not like a few hours made any difference.   
“So, uh, guys… I need to tell you something.”  
“Was this about when the greasy git called you into his office?” Ron asked immediately, ever the picture of tact.  
“No, no, that’s a different thing.” Draco’s eyes watched him eagerly for his answer, clearly curious as to what went on with his head of house after dinner the previous night, and, although Harry didn’t realize it, rather concerned.   
“Alright then, out with it mate, we haven’t got all day!” Dean replied impatiently. He and his boyfriend had apparently wandered into their room this morning to make conversation before Harry had woken up.   
“Really, cos it sure seemed like you had all the time in the world last night when you were snogging Seamus instead of working on the charms homework.” Dean threw a pillow in the direction of the barb. “Shut up Zabini!” he growled, although more out of good humor than menace. Neville stopped the two before a full-scale pillow war could begin, turning to Harry expectantly. Said boy scratched the back of his neck nervously.   
“Alright, well, I’m not exactly sure how I got roped into this, but apparently, I’m the new DADA professor.”   
“Wicked!” Ron did not seem to consider his perceived lack of credentials.   
“Wait, how?” Draco, apparently, seemed to catch the express a bit faster.  
“McGonagall called me into her office last night after I finished with Snape, and apparently, the new professor quit before she even started, and nobody else would do it, and according to Minnie, it was Amelia Bone’s idea to begin with- Susan better not have known, or I am going to be mad she didn’t talk her out of it- and McGonagall begged, and I just couldn’t say know, and Merlin…will things ever be normal?” His dorm mates had stopped listening to his rambling quite prior to this, and were on to excited chatter about the implications.   
“Hey, Har- now that you’re a professor, do I get a homework pass in your class?” In addition to a pyromaniac, Seamus was an opportunist, albeit without the subtlety of a Slytherin.   
“Oh gods, I have to give homework! I have to grade homework! I’m going to need a dictionary just to get through ‘Mione’s essays!” the green-eyed youth plunged his face into his pillows and groaned.   
“Quit being such a drama queen! If you can defeat the dark lord, you can manage making worksheets for 11-year-olds.” Draco swatted him on the back of the head, the action oddly affectionate.   
“Can I get an assistant? Draco, you can grade my papers, right? You actually know what the word lugubrious means.”   
“Indeed,” the blonde said dryly, “and I must say you’re looking rather lugubrious right now, you big lug. But alas, I have my hands full with making sure you don’t destroy the Wizengamot. Oh, and speaking of destroying things, the Gryffindorks wanted you to give them some tips out on the pitch today. They don’t think their seeker is suicidal enough.” This time, Harry smacked him.   
“Oh, haha. I suppose I can make time after lunch. Ron, wanna come with?” He received an affirmative from the freckled redhead.   
“What, not going to extend the invitation to the rest of us, Potter?”  
“Yeah, you’re not playing this season, so we’ll take the comedy where we can get it.”  
Harry shot a glare at the two Slytherins but conceded with a put-upon air.   
“I’m hungry- let’s go eat!”  
“You’re always hungry, Ron,” his best friend replied, but some kippers did sound nice right about now, so Harry waved his hands to spell on his school robes, not wanting a repeat of yesterday’s performance.


	13. 13

The Great Hall was crowded and noisier than usual, and this, along with all the younger years looking at him in adoration, made Harry realize that they had arrived late, and the headmistress had already made the new teacher for DADA known throughout. He dodged the throngs hoping to ask him questions and made his way over to the table, putting a pancake and a few potatoes onto his plate.   
McGonagall came over and handed him a piece of parchment. “This is your revised schedule to accommodate your teaching periods. You will notice potions is currently missing- Professor Snape wanted to take the remainder of the week to work out a solution for what you discussed last night- so I will give you the final draft on Monday. For now, Harry, you have a first-year class in,” she consulted her watch, “ten minutes. Guide you in gently.” Harry hardly supposed dealing with a gaggle of unruly, hero-worshipping 11-year-olds would be “guiding him in gently,” but it was probably easier than trying to duel with a bunch of N.E.W.T’s students first thing in the morning. That wasn’t until tomorrow. Oh, joy.   
And yet ten minutes later found him walking into the Defense classroom (his classroom, he reminded himself) and stuffing the last of his pancake into his mouth. He realized that all of his students were already there, chattering excitedly, with their books already out. Harry blushed red and brushed the crumbs off of his robes (Gryffindor robes, he realized as he waved his hand to change them to neutral coloring, groaning when he saw all the students’ eyes get even bigger. He has got to remember to use his wand).  
“Good morning, guys,” he called out, “I’m Harry.” Best keep it informal, for his own sake.   
“Shouldn’t we call you professor?” one Hufflepuff-clad brunette called out after politely raising her hand.  
“I’d rather keep the atmosphere friendly- I’m no more used to this than you are. Besides, nearly every professor I’ve had in this class has tried to kill me.” Harry facepalmed as the classroom blanched. “Just to be clear, I am not going to try to kill you.”  
A tiny Slytherin in the back whose whole countenance screamed “muggle-born,” let out an audible sigh of relief. That reminded him of something.   
“In this class, I plan on doing a lot of practical work. For that to succeed, we cannot have animosity in this classroom. We are all here, and we are all equal in status. Any discrimination based on blood, color, wealth, sexuality, wand wood or whatever else people are tearing each other apart over these days will not be tolerated and will result in at least a week of detentions. Are we clear?”  
A classroom of nodded heads. Harry beamed at them, green eyes alight at the thought that perhaps the school was finally coming together, before he consciously pulled out his wand and waved it at the board, causing Expelliarmus to appear in large letters with a squiggly line under it.   
“This spell is normally taught to second years, but I think that’s bullsh- … um, stupid.” The class giggled, and Harry felt that at least he was making them feel comfortable. “If you are ever in a fight, for any reason, the most important thing to know is how to get the wand, or other weapon, out of the opponent’s hand. This ends the fight with as little injury to both sides as possible. Now, I am going to show you the incantation and wand movement for this, but that shouldn’t be your main focus- try to focus on your core and feel the magic. If you ever find yourself fighting for your life, which I hope to gods you don’t, then you will need to put all your focus into observing your opponent and surroundings, not executing perfect wrist movement. I find it better if you don’t think too hard about it- if you relax and connect to your center, your magic and your mind will rise to the occasion. Now, pair off and try it for yourselves.”   
Harry walked around the room observing the students. They seemed to be getting it pretty well, and aside from one girl’s hairband flying across the room, there were no major incidents. Harry was helping one boy with his pronunciation when he was hit by a stray spell- yellow in the color of the magical aura- this student was surprisingly advanced. His glasses crashed to the floor. He turned to see the blurry face of the little Slytherin muggle-born, her pretty blue eyes full of mortification as she opened her mouth to apologize.   
“That was a pretty strong spell,” he smiled at her as he summoned his glasses back and cast a reparo before pushing them back up the bridge of his nose. “Maybe next time just work on your aim a little.” Dimpled cheeks bearing the last vestiges of baby fat flushed red as she nodded shyly, rushing out the door as the bell rang.


	14. Chapter 14

All the eight years had a free period after Harry’s first DADA class, so the scrawny green-eyed teen chewed his lip wring as he made his way to the library, anxious over not only his lessons, but also over seeing Draco who, for some odd reason, gave him an odd flopping in his stomach whenever he looked at him. Best not to think about that now.   
He saw the Malfoy scion sitting at a table in the corner thumbing through his transfiguration book. He looked up and actually smiled when he saw Harry making his way over, and his eyes changed from a stormy gray to a lighter burnished silver color by the light of the window.   
“Alright you big Gryffindork. What should we start with?”  
“Honestly Draco, I have no idea. That’s why I’m here.” He chuckled warmly, tossing his shaggy curls out of his face. Draco felt his belly roil with heat, and he really hoped it was indigestion instead of what he thought it was.   
“O-kaaay then, I suppose we’ll just start with basic political etiquette. Which, fortunately for you, is more about who’s under you.”  
“Under me? What’s that supposed to mean?”  
“It means, oh chosen one, that you are at the top of the power structure. The Potter house alone is one of the most ancient and noble houses, as well as one of the richest. Combine that with the other influential houses, and you’re practically the king of wizarding Britain.”   
“One person with that much power? That seems so… barbaric! What if I turned into, like, a despot or something?”  
“Oh yeah, because the kid who gives first years directions to class and cuddles with his owl in the mornings is obviously dictator material.” Draco rolled his eyes sardonically, as if he couldn’t believe the thought even crossed Harry’s mind.   
“You are starting to sound a lot like Snape, do you know that?”  
“Of course I am. Don’t you know that he gives all of us weekly lessons in the common room? Speaking of which, what did Sev want with you last night?”  
Harry looked around at the crowded library and leaned closer, his whispered breaths sending a thrill of exhilaration down Draco’s spine. Fuck, it wasn’t indigestion. “I don’t wanna talk about it here, if at all. But maybe we can talk later.”   
Draco’s pale skin flushed a brilliant scarlet as he tried not to stutter his next sentence. “Anyway, Potter, what I’m saying is that, basically, you have a lot of power, and yes, the laws are kind of like a feudal system here. But what better guy than you to have the most power? You can change the system. And because so many people either answer to you or are trying to schmooze their way into your good graces, you don’t have to worry so much about social faux pas.”  
“Alright, I guess that’s… better. But what about the Wizengamot? How does that even work? And the letter said something about being able to appoint proxies?”   
“That would probably a good idea. At least for this school year since you’re so busy. What I would recommend is choosing a few people you trust to fill the seats, since putting one person in charge of so many votes might not represent your best interests as well.”  
“So, the next meeting is Tuesday, a week from today. And I’ve got to find at least three people outside of Hogwarts to attend. I suppose I could write to Remus, Molly, and… Oh! Fred and George!” Harry smiled impishly and his brilliant green eyes almost seemed to take on the glittering, dancing hue of a bonfire around the edges. Draco shook his head and looked back, deciding that what was most definitely a crush on the chosen one was causing him to see things. Dear gods! It took him a moment to register the actual words, he had been so captivated by his voice, but once he did he laughed outright.   
“Oh Merlin! I cannot wait to see how the old geezers react to that!”   
“Do you think I should tell the twins not to bring the dungbombs?”   
“If it were me, I would advise them specifically to bring the expandable swamp. Flitwick will be so proud when he reads the prophet article.” Harry laughed.  
“Is that proper political etiquette for a lord?” He sucked the ring back into his mouth playfully.  
“You have a point, Lord Potter. Perhaps just tell them that you trust their judgement during the meeting. I think they will get the message.”   
Harry laughed again and tore his face away from Draco’s curiously enigmatic eyes. “Why, I daresay I never knew you were such a scoundrel, Lord Malfoy.”  
“War changes people.” They continued looking at each other for a moment before Ginny came up, dragging Luna and Neville by the hands and smiling knowingly.   
“Harry, bro. It’s lunch time, and then you promised to show us quidditch moves! I’m captain this year and we need to beat these meatheads.” She jabbed a finger at Draco.   
“Hey Weaslette, I will have you know that Crabbe and Goyle do not speak for the talent of the entire quidditch team.”  
“Whatever you say, ferret.” She flashed a mischievous smile his way.  
“Will you people ever get over that?” Said ferret grumbled as Harry laughed and casually pulled him up from the table.   
“I think you made a cute ferret. Now let’s go eat before the hamsters get all the Draco-friendly food.” Malfoy blushed at being called cute, even in a furry form. Suddenly that day in fourth year didn’t seem like such a bad memory.


	15. Chapter 15

The quidditch pitch was sunny and beautiful, if slightly chilly, Harry thought as he pulled his robes more tightly to his thin form. Gryffindor’s team stood in a line facing him, Ginny at the head, three new faces that looked to be between third and fourth year, and two brightly smiling Creevy boys.   
“Alright team, Harry here is gonna show us some moves out on the field today. We’ll start with some seeker demonstrations and then he and his dorm mates are will team up to play a practice game against us.”  
“We will?” Harry certainly wasn’t told that little bit of information.   
“Yea, Potter, we will. Gonna kick some Gryffind-ass, you, me, pyro and his other half, Weasley, and Longbottom.”   
“Nev, you okay with this?” Harry vividly remembered his first flying incident.   
“I think so, I’ve gotten a lot better lately. With the war and all.”   
Mentions of the war always tended to break off any casual conversation, so Harry simply got up into the air and started demonstrating moves. He started with a Wronski feint, then a triple barrel roll followed by a move of his invention that left him hanging upside down by his feet on his broom until his hands touched the ground clasping the snitch as he rolled over his shoulder onto the ground.   
It took a while for the cheers and noise and questions to stop before they were able to form teams. Harry, of course, was seeker for the eighth years, Ron was keeper, Seamus and Dean were the dream team with the beater bats, and Draco, Blaise, and Neville were taking over as chasers. The Potter lord actually smiled as he saw that Blaise and Dray put themselves in front of Neville so he didn’t have to keep up as quick of a pace. They were actually coming together as a school, and he’d never been happier about anything.   
As Draco had predicted, their team was thoroughly trouncing the Gryffindor’s- which made Harry feel a bit torn, seeing as he was a proud lion and lord of the house- when Colin’s Cleansweep smacked the edge of the goalpost, sending his broom off to the side and him towards the ground. Harry, in typical Harry Potter fashion, dove downward to catch him, and catch him he did. But even the little Creevy, the “shrimp” of the seventh year class, outweighed Harry, and the act of summoning Colin’s broom and pushing him back onto it sent him careening further downward. He probably wouldn’t have fallen any further if the beaters, in their terror at the spectacle, hadn’t forgotten the bludgers, one of which found a nice little niche in Harry’s dark, wind-mussed hair and the skull underneath it. He fell the remaining 75 feet unconscious, hitting the ground with a resounding thud that scared the shit out of everyone.


	16. Chapter 16

Waking up in the hospital wing feeling like he’d been hit by a bus was not Harry’s favorite thing in the world, but it was certainly normal for him. Which was why he was comparatively calm until his dorm mates started screaming at him.   
“You idiot!” Draco was near hysterical, Ron looked like a blanched carrot cake, Seamus was gripping Dean’s hand with such ferocity that both of their knuckles were white, and Blaise was trying awkwardly to console Hermione, because Ron was far too shell-shocked.   
“Wha…?”   
“Harry, you nearly died!” Hermione screeched while trying to keep her voice down so Madam Pomphrey wouldn’t kick them out.   
“I do that a lot, don’t I?” he picked up his sore arm to try to scratch his neck as was his normal nervous habit, but Draco reached over and pushed it back down.   
“This isn’t a joke Harry! Madam Pomphrey said that she can’t figure out how you even lived! It’s been three days! She said it’d be a miracle if you woke up at all!”  
“Three days- what about my classes?” Harry worried that he was failing McGonagall.   
“They’ve been postponed, but that’s not important!” Uh oh, ‘Mione said classes weren’t important, which in ‘Mionese meant that the situation was serious. “I’m going to go get Madam Pomphrey.”   
The irate medi-witch made fetching her unnecessary as she bustled in and started running diagnostic tests. “Good, you’re awake. And doing remarkably well, under the circumstances. Now you will only need to stay the rest of the week, and you can come back next weekend so we can fix those other things you never bothered to tell me about!” She harrumphed and shot him a dirty look.   
“Other things? Would these other things happen to have anything to do with the Dursley’s abuse?” Hermione’s eyes looked more like a bronze warship than warm chocolate at the moment. Harry looked at his dormmates, betrayed.   
“Sorry Harry, but we had to tell Hermione- we were going to convince you to tell her, but, you know, and then Seamus and I overheard the conversation, but I promise we’re the only ones who know, and we won’t tell anyone.”   
Harry was about to respond, although he wasn’t yet sure how, before Madam Pomphrey ushered them all out, shoving a potion at him and telling him to rest.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay guys- this is where shit starts to get real.

When Harry next woke, it was the middle of the night and there was a strange man standing by his bed. He was about to reach for his wand, then remembered he didn’t need it. He shot a stunner in his direction, but it had no effect.   
“Easy kid,” he said as he tried to prevent Harry from scrambling up the bedpost. “I’m just here to talk business.”   
“Business? I don’t remember applying for a second job, and you don’t look like the headmistress.”  
“Not that business. Look kid, I’m sure you’ve been noticing your magic getting stronger lately- you know, thestral talking, the whole wandless shebang, all that jazz.”   
“How do you know that?”   
“Because you’re my heir, kid.” The dark man tossed out casually.   
“What? I don’t…”  
“Look kid, you’re still injured, so I’m going to make this simple. I’m Thanatos, god of death. I kind of adopted you. You get to take my job- benefits include immortality, necromancy, and super cool godly powers.”   
“What the hell? Master of death? I buried the hallows.”  
“It’s so cute that you wizards think the hallows actually make you master of death. I’m not that stupid. They only worked because I chose you.”  
“What do you mean, you chose me?”  
“Look kid, I know I look young and hot and stuff, but I’ve been the reaper/death master for like, 10,000 years, and I’m ready to retire. So when you deflected that killing curse as a kid, I figured you were perfect. Long story short, I did a little adoption ritual and leaked my power to you slowly. You wouldn’t have made it a year in the Dursley house otherwise, trust me. But I gave you a choice- you could have died in the forest that day, but you didn’t. Therefore, you accepted your role and unlocked the full potential of your power.”   
“God? What? But I didn’t even know I accepted anything?! And what do you mean I have to reap souls and whatnot? Necromancy? What the bloody hell?”  
“Don’t worry kid- I’m not throwing you to Zeus’s wolves or anything. I’ve got another thirty years until I retire, so you get to adjust slowly. Trust me, once you come into your powers completely, it’ll be easy to reap all the souls and still have downtime. Perk of being omnipotent. It’ll come naturally to you- instinct. You’ll be on real light duty at first.”  
“Zeus, omnipotent? What. The. Fuck. Is. Going. On?” Harry ground out.   
“Oh yeah, we’re all real. Wizards used to worship us before Christianity. Honestly, you lose one pet snake. Aww look, your eyes are turning black with little flames in the irises! That’s my boy! Anyway, a few more tips for ya. Don’t try to push your powers. You’ll know when you’re ready to start visiting the underworld and summoning your dead family and friends for a chat and stuff. Also, whoever you marry gets immortality too, and don’t give me that look champ- yeah, you live forever, but you are literally the god of the dead- you can visit all your pals when they die- it’ll be like they’re still there. It’s one of the concession- not leaving your loved ones behind. Anyway, takes a while to come into the whole godly health stuff, so for now you’ve still got your shitty mortal immune system- you just can’t die. One time when I was young deity, I got mono from this foxy little wood nymph- and boy, did I wish I could die. So, uh, yeah, take your allergy medicine and your nutrient potions and get all your bones reset and all that, and I’ll come back to visit you when you’ve adjusted and don’t look like you’re about to try your damn best to kill me. Adios m’hijo, I’m going to go look for a retirement cabana in the Bahamas.” With that he did something that was most certainly not disapperation, because there was no pop and he actually managed to go somewhere.   
Harry lay awake a long time thinking about that. He wished he could disbelieve it, but it made sense of everything- the stronger powers, the talking to thestrals, the not dying. And yes, he was furious that yet another of his choices was made for him, but there was no getting out of this one. He was a lord and a god. Yippee. Well, at least he was a death god, as horrible as it sounded. As soon as his apparently-instinctual powers for necromancy and traversing the underworld came in, he could talk to his parents. Sirius. His grandparents. Cedric. He could have an actual relationship with his family, one without the shortcomings of the resurrection stone. He would have to watch his friends grow old, but he was a god, he could just as well alter his appearance. And he could spend time with them after they were gone same as he could when they were alive. He could even guide them to the other side as a friendly face. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t a bad deal. It was better than being immortal and, like, the god of flowers and trees and everything-that-isn’t-dead.   
What made him the maddest was that he hadn’t been given a choice. That some god just put his genes into him when he was one and then again when he was 17. And he would give Thanatos a good dressing-down for that. But the guy also kept him alive, which wouldn’t have happened if he hadn’t taken an interest, and he wouldn’t be here to be mad about being immortal. Dear gods, what was wrong with his life? Apparently, he had forever to figure it out, and he should probably try to get along with his whatever-Thanatos-was-to-him. After he put the fear of God (gods? Him?) into him for screwing with his life-that-wouldn’t-really-be-a-life-without him. Fuck. Just fuck. The vacillating emotions were stirring in him like a hurricane, and he eventually decided to ask Hermione for a book about Greek Mythology (not-mythology?) and take it from there. Before he realized that- oh shit!- he had to tell his friends. He then put more sleepless hours, during which he was too sore to toss and turn as he would have liked, into figuring out when and how to tell them. He figured that as good a time as any to tell your friends you were a death god was when you started showing signs of necromancy, and as the dawn came and he drifted off to sleep, he decided not to worry about it until then. He had higher priorities at the moment- he still had to come up with that third-year essay prompt for his classes, after all.


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Whoo! I am on fire these past couple of days and I have two more chapters for you guys tonight! The chamber has been opened and Bassy has been released!

Despite the fact that he now knew he was immortal, Harry really did think he would die of boredom as he sat in the hospital wing the next day. Despite repeated begging, Madam Pomphrey would not condescend to giving him any of his schoolwork, “even if you are a teacher now, Mr. Potter.” He’d slept as much as he could, but that still left him with a major amount of time on his hands. Thanatos wasn’t lying when he said that the beginning of immortality didn’t make illness and injury any less painful. Moving was difficult still, so he couldn’t even fidget comfortably as an outlet. He was just thinking that he would accept just about any distraction when Snape walked in. Careful what you wish for.  
“Mr. Potter” he greeted, as Harry wondered whether this was fussy nanny Snape or grumpy caustic Snape.   
“Good afternoon, Professor.” Harry kept his tone deliberately chipper and his eyes guarded.   
“Good afternoon indeed! You imbecile; were you trying to give me a heart attack?!” Ah, a little of both, then.   
“Apologies, sir- I assure you I didn’t intend to fall out of the sky.” He was very careful to clamp down on his normal sarcasm and keep his voice tempered.   
“You shouldn’t have been on a broom at all with your health issues. I would have thought that’d be obvious, but apparently, nothing is obvious to a Potter.”   
“I don’t know why that would be an issue- I’ve been flying for years after summers with the Dursley’s, professor.” Harry really wasn’t trying to pick a fight, but he was sore, he was testy, and he hated being reminded over his “childhood.”  
“Well that’s certainly reassuring.” The professor gave a bitter little snort.   
“So, were you here for a reason or just to remind me how accident-prone I am?” Green eyes twinkled slightly as the teen tried for a joke, knowing that making fun of him was Severus Snape’s favorite hobby.   
“I have worked out a formula for a nutrient potion that doesn’t include any of your copious allergens and have come to drop off the doses for the weekend. Starting Monday, you will receive a phial during every meal in the great hall.”  
“Sir, would it be too much trouble if I were to come to your classroom to take it so that I don’t have to take it in front of everyone?”  
“For you, yes it would. The point of the nutrient potions is to fatten you up, not have you counteracting the effects of it by running from one end of the school to the other and risking catching your death of a chill three times a day.” Harry had to bite his lip to keep from laughing at the idea that he could “catch his death” of anything, let alone a chill, after everything he’d learned last night.   
“I dare say your friends already know about all of your issues by that point- they’re walking around moping. Even if they didn’t know already, is it really such a shocking idea that you’d be taking them? You look like a little starved crow.”  
“You’re one to be talking about crows,” the irate chosen one whispered under his breath.   
“What was that now, Mr. Potter?” Snape’s quirked eyebrow and suppressed half-smile showed that he knew exactly what was said.   
“Nothing sir. Have a nice day.”  
“Doubtful. I still have to make a little brat an epi-pen and an inhaler.” But he actually did smile at Harry that time, despite his best efforts.


	19. Chapter 19

After Snape’s dubiously enjoyable visit, Harry remembered that he was a powerful wizard and simply conjured some paper and a quill to start on his lesson plans until dinner, at which point Madam Pomphrey shoved an overstuffed tray at him and told him brusquely to eat it all. The boy supposed he could understand her irritation when he had successfully managed to hide the most serious of his health issues from her for seven years, and thus keep her from doing her job properly. Nothing annoyed Poppy Pomphrey more than being prevented from doing her job properly.   
Halfway through the momentous struggle to finish the overly generous portion, dinner in the Great Hall ended and Harry’s friends came pouring in for a visit. Harry quickly cast a notice-me-not ward so the medi-witch wouldn’t kick them out.   
“’Ello mate. How’s the solitary?” Seamus teased. His sense of humor was the one part of him that was at zero risk for catching on fire.   
“I’m glad you guys are here, for sure. How’s Collin doing?”  
“Only you would ask how the kid whose life you saved is doing when you’re the one in the hospital bed, Potter.” Blaise remarked as if Harry was some strange creature he had been told to study for CoMC.   
“He’s okay, Har. He felt pretty guilty, but we managed to convince him it wasn’t his fault, and he’s doing a whole lot better since you woke up.” Harry smiled at his surrogate brother- he could always count on Ron for a straight answer.   
“Thanks mate; that’s good to hear. How are classes? The prison warden won’t let me have any of my work.”   
“Everyone’s excited for Monday, which is odd in itself. The first years have been talking about the one class you’ve actually gotten the chance to teach, and now everyone else is clamoring for their turn, even the seventh years.” Dean piped up.   
“Well of course they’re excited. They’re being taught by the famous Harry Potter.” Draco didn’t say it contemptuously or venomously like he once did. Rather, he was trying to not to laugh.   
“Shut up, Malfoy.” Harry, with some effort, was able to give Draco a pitifully playful slap on the arm. Draco gently grabbed the errant appendage and placed it on the bed.   
“Gods Potter,” Draco said as he brushed his hand not-so-accidentally against Harry’s shoulder. “You’ve got so many knots you could be a macramé project. I should put in a call to mother’s masseuse.”   
“I’ve never seen a masseuse in my life, Draco Malfoy, and I’ve never been the worse for it.”   
Hermione shot him a look. “I think a massage would do you good, Harry. It’s better for your physical and mental health if you’re muscles are loose and relaxed.”   
“My life coach has spoken then, Draco. I’ll owl your mum.”   
“I’ll do it for you, love.” He said, and while he and most of the others missed the term of endearment, Ginny, Luna, and Hermione shot each other secretive smiles and sly winks. “I don’t think Hedwig could get through the wards around the manner, and we’re still trying to disable a lot of the darker ones that Lucius put up.” He spat his father’s name as if it were a curse word, which to him it really was.   
“Oh, I’ve already written to your mum.” Harry remarked airily. “We’ve been talking since the war ended. I thanked her for not telling Voldemort I was dead, she said it was no problem since it made sure her son was okay, and then she gushed about you and sent me some baby pictures.”   
“She did not!” Draco cried, mortified. “You’re making that up!”   
“You had an adorable golden snidget rattle, you know.” Harry teased coyly.   
“Well you’re one to talk, with your picture all over the chocolate frog cards in a little white dress.”  
“It was a christening outfit!”  
“Ugh, get a room you two.” Dean stuck his tongue out.   
“This is the hospital wing; it practically is Harry’s room.” Ron remarked, oblivious as ever. Hermione resolved to talk to him later so he wouldn’t have an aneurism when he inevitably stumbled upon Harry and Draco snogging in a corridor somewhere. Although, knowing her sweet, naïve Harry, he will probably have an aneurism the first time it happens as well. Boys, she thought as she looked at her doofus, redheaded boyfriend fondly.   
“Well,” Ginny said at last, checking her watch to break the tension. Honestly, how those two could be eye-fucking without seeing that they were eye-fucking could only happen to a relationship involving Harry Potter. “It’s time we go study for the transfig pop quiz.”   
“There’s a pop quiz?” Draco asked, ceasing to stare lustily and not-so-subtly at Harry, as was Ginny’s goal. “How do you know that? It’s called a pop quiz for a reason.”   
“Perks of being a Gryffindor.” Ginny intoned in a sing-song voice.   
“Why don’t you guys study here?” Harry asked, big green eyes pleading.   
“Madam Pomphrey is right. You do need to rest.” Hermione admonished as she gathered all the books she lugged around everywhere.   
“Any hints on the lesson plans for DADA, Har?” Neville asked as they huddled beyond the reach of the notice me not ward, trying to get out as quickly as possible to avoid waking the mama bear that came out in Pomphrey with her patients, especially where Harry was concerned.   
“I hope you’ll tell me if you hear anything,” the other teen jested just as they heard the office door open and scurried out.


	20. Chapter 20

Madame Pomphrey finally let him go Monday morning just before breakfast, after making him promise to come up the next weekend to get all his improperly healed bones rebroken to get them set properly. The nurse was currently lamenting the fact that his immune system was too weak to get the vaccinations the Dursley’s never bothered with, even with the supplements Snape had created. Harry slipped out while she was distracted with frowning over his charts.  
The green-eyed teen made his way into the Great Hall and smiled. All his Slytherin eighth year friends were sitting at the Gryffindor table with his housemates and Luna.  
“Hey guys. I finished my lesson plans for the week.” He flashed another brilliantly crooked smile at them and grabbed a pancake and an apple, then waited as Hermione added three more pancakes, two rashers of bacon, and a sausage link with accompanied by a significant look.  
“Oy, what’re we doing?” Ron garbled through a mouthful of kippers.  
“Patronus charm for the seventh and eighth years.”  
“That’ll be especially good for us,” Pansy piped up. “We weren’t invited to your super cool defense club.” Harry listened to Sal the snake hiss for a moment before responding.  
“Sal thinks sarcasm is unbecoming on you.” He quipped back.  
“That’s something coming from you, sassy Potter.”  
Harry grumbled and casually gave her the finger before laying his head on Draco’s shoulder.  
“Wh-what’re you doing?” Draco stuttered, his cheeks flushing.  
“’m tired. Pomphrey kept waking me up trying to text my temperature. ‘M not even sick.” He yawned adorably (in Draco’s opinion) as he lazily chewed a piece of bacon.  
“Oh you poor baby.” The blond teased as he unconsciously started petting Harry’s messy hair, which this morning was some weird combination of curls and upstanding straight pieces. Hermione smiled at Pansy, who was smirking knowingly and petting her snake like some kind of plotting love deity.  
“Mmm… I gotta teach you people stuff. I don’t even know stuff. Stupid Canada.”  
“Are we degrading them because the original teacher ran away to live there or because they left our great empire?” Blaise mocked.  
“Parce qu'ils détruiraient la langue française.”  
“Oh Dray, quit being so dramatic- languages change with the culture.”  
Everyone swiveled to face Harry, gobsmacked. “You speak French!”  
The chosen one shrugged. “Eh. I would borrow Mione’s Muggle French books when I couldn’t sleep, so I picked some up.”  
“That’s where those went! I never got them back, by the way!”  
Harry scrunched his brows together, looking adorably (again, according to Draco) perplexed. “I told Hedwig to take them back to you.”  
*Cut to scene of Hedwig in the owlery, sitting on a nest of shredded French literature*  
Ron suddenly looked at his watch, telling them it was time to rush to class.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so this is a good day! Triple update!


	21. Chapter 21

After transfiguration class, in which Minerva kept giving him pitiful looks (does everyone know about his childhood now?) Harry filed into the DADA classroom with the rest of the class, about to sit at a table next to Draco, Dean, Seamus, and Pansy before he remembered that he was the teacher and stumbled up to the front of the room.  
“Hi guys- apparently, I have to teach you now, so this is gonna be interesting. Um, for those of you that were in the D.A., this is gonna be similar to that. So right now, we’re gonna break off and learn the Patronus charm, and people who already know it can help everyone else. So, the incantation is expecto patronum and the idea is to think of your happiest memory to try to summon the charm. You can also use it to send messages, which we will be getting to as soon you’ve mastered the basic protection aspect. Now, the most famous use for this charm is obviously the dementor, but it can also be used against the lethifold, which we will hopefully never see. But uh, anyway… maybe we can start with a few people who can already do the charm telling us what memories they use so you guys get an idea. Hermione?” Harry didn’t even bother asking anyone else- he knew Hermione would volunteer and he wanted to get to it before they got to the awkwardness of people his own age raising their hands.  
Hermione blushed a bit before she answered. “Well, I use the memory of when Ron and I had our first kiss. I used to use the memory of getting my Hogwarts’ letter, but memories can grow with the people who have them.”  
They eventually all got down to trying it for themselves, and while some of the seventh years had trouble at first, Harry really was a good teacher and by the end of the class everyone could produce at least a weakly corporeal Patronus. Draco’s especially was funny, but he didn’t seem to be as offended by the fact that everyone was laughing as his glowing silver ferret as he would have a week ago, before Harry had remarked he’d made a cute one.  
The next period was potions, and those not “in the know” were surprised to realize that the potion scheduled on the syllabus for the day was removed in favor of one that didn’t have Viridian root in it. Despite the fact that Snape had painstakingly removed even the mildest of Harry’s allergens, he still called him back into the supply room and made him slather himself in the itch ointment and shoved both an inhaler and an EpiPen-looking device into his hands. Harry found himself blushing embarrassedly as he sat back down next to Draco.


	22. Chapter 22

Walking out of Potions, the last lecture for the day, Harry grabbed Draco’s scarf, using it to wipe the goopy ointment off of his face and hands as the blond grumbled and stuck his tongue out at him. They had started a playful argument, but Harry’s continuous habit of sucking on his lip ring was inspiring feelings in Draco that were most definitely not playful. Pansy walked by them in the hallway, the last to leave the room after the two of them, and not so accidentally shoved her hip against Draco, sending him falling into Harry, who tried to hold his weight but was too light to support him, thus forcing the taller blond to catch him as he fell, which ended with him falling backwards to the dungeon floor with Harry on top of him, stammering and blushing scarlet.   
“Ta,” Pansy sang, giving her trademark smirk as he waved goodbye. “I’ll leave you two to bond.”   
“Ummm….” They both said at the same time.   
“Ignore her,” Draco finally found his voice. “She likes to meddle. She seems to forget that not everyone I’m attracted to is gay.” He then realized what he said and wanted to die.   
“You’re attracted to me?” Harry asked, strangely quiet.   
“Well, I mean, yeah, but so is everyone. It’s okay, it doesn’t need to change anything, it’s…”  
“But I think it should change something. Cos well, I’m attracted to you too.” He scratched the back of his neck sheepishly, his lips plump and oh-so-attractive.   
*****************************************************************************************************************************************************************

Twenty minutes later found the two boys still tangled up on the floor, snogging furiously as Snape walked out, having just finished some personal work in his lab. He looked dispassionately for a moment at the two love-ridden teenagers unaware of his presence before walking towards the Slytherin dorms.   
“They don’t pay me enough for this.” He grumbled to himself as he stalked down the corridor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, so Draco and Harry are finally together! What do you guys think about the way it happened? Was it realistic, well paced? Enjoyable?


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sorry it's been so long but I finally prodded Bassy into giving me something. I promise I haven't abandoned this fic, but my fellow writers know how fickle and sporadic the muse can be. Love y'all!

“Meet me tonight in the forbidden forest,” Draco whispered softly into Draco’s ear at the dinner table the next day, sending shivers down his spine.   
“What are we doing?” he asked breathily, shooting a glare at Luna and Ginny, who were giggling and shooting them knowing looks between nibbling at each other’s ear lobes. Harry, of course, didn’t notice. He was too busy trying to resist the temptation to nibble Draco’s earlobe.   
“Oi mate, how were the third years this morning?” Ron inquired while reaching for another serving of steak and kidney pie, then dumping it on Harry’s plate when Hermione shot him a look.   
“They were good, pretty noisy though. Had to work more to keep them on task than with the first years. Hey Ron, I just finished eating.” He sighed and put down his fork, then picked it up again as Draco prodded his prominent ribs, silently reminding him that trying to finish a second serving was probably a good idea.   
“So how bad are these nutrient potions?” Pansy asked, picking up one of the phials by his plate and wrinkling her nose as she smelled it at the same time that Sal quickly retracted his curiously flicking tongue.   
“As I’m sure you just figured out, like some awful mix between rotten spinach and dirty socks. And maybe a little bit of death.”   
“Yeah, really don’t envy you right now.” Blaise snorted.   
“Tell me about it. I’m not crazy about it either. And Snape is being really weird right now.”   
“When is Snape not weird?” Neville asked him, brazen.   
“Good point,” Ginny giggled again, kissing his cheek. Luna laced her fingers through her other his hand and leaned her head again and laid her feet across both of their laps as she said something about nargles liking to hang around potions ingredients.   
“So, Harry,” Hermione broke in again, “how’d your politics lessons with Draco go?”   
Said Harry blushed as he thought back to that afternoon, where there was very little politics and a lot of snogging against a library shelf.   
“Um, we sent Fred and George to the Wizengamot meeting this afternoon. I think it’s still going on.”   
“Hopefully everyone is still alive by the end of this meeting,” Pansy snorted, prompting everyone else in the vicinity to start laughing.   
“I dunno, thought it’d be funny. I’m getting all my bones re-broken this weekend, I’ve got bigger problems than what a bunch of stodgy politicians think about livening up the meeting with a bunch of filibuster fireworks.”   
“You told them to bring the fireworks?!” Ginny was screeching by then.   
“Technically, we told them to use their own judgement.” Draco was trying to maintain his dignified “Malfoy Snicker,” but it was a lost cause. He was snorting, and Harry thought it was adorable, leaning over to kiss his cheek before he realized what he’d done and looking at everyone else to wait for the outrage.   
Instead everyone started clapping. “It’s about time!” Hermione burst out, while Luna added something about “their nobblewops having been pining after each other for years.” Harry looked at Ron, who shrugged.   
“’Mione already prepped me. Plus Pansy’s been gossiping all afternoon.” Draco glared at his best friend, who was too busy eyeing Milly at the Slytherin table.   
“Oh, just go flirt with her and stop interfering with everyone else’s love life, you twat.” He shoved her off the bench as she stumbled, somehow graciously, towards the other girl.   
“Prat.” She stuck her tongue out and prodded Sal, who slithered up her arm like and curled around her bicep like a bangle, clearly having practiced the routine. Then she straightened her school robes and strode right over, clearly convinced that if she could get those two oblivious boneheads together she could manage her own relationship.


	24. Chapter 24

“Hey Dray, wake up,” Harry prodded the sleeping boy next to him.   
“Mmm, sleeping. Sod off.” Harry laughed quietly and tickled his chin until he sat up.  
“Trust me love, this will be worth it.”   
“Why couldn’t it be worth it three hours ago?” Draco grumbled, rubbing his eyes.   
“You have to wait until the moon’s up for this surprise.”   
“If this is some sort of werewolf kink, I’m going to kill you.” The Malfoy heir whispered hotly into his ear.   
“Oh, nothing like that love. Besides, you’re already a wolf in the sheets.”   
Draco smiled and nipped the sensitive skin behind his ear, leaving a mark and earning a heady gasp as he threw his cloak over the two of them, more so they could continue their liaisons along the way than out of any fear of getting in trouble for being out after curfew.   
They reached the forest and Harry pulled Draco along to his chosen clearing, laughing along the way.   
“What’s supposed to be happening here?” Draco asked dubiously. “All I see is an empty forest.”  
“Just stay behind this bush, sit quietly, and give it a minute.” Harry breathed, conjuring a tray of treacle fudge.   
The blonde scrunched down until he was short enough to lay his head on Harry’s shoulder, gasping in amazement when he saw what Harry had planned for them. The dance of the mooncalves was a beautiful sight, but very few saw it in the modern wizarding world with so much prejudice against “beasts,” and so few who were unwilling or unable to venture into a forest in the dead of night on the full moon, with even fewer willing to go alone or in such small groups as wouldn’t scare the shy creatures. Draco remembered asking his father when he was five years old and receiving all of these as excuses, and the fact that Harry knew that he would like it without knowing this story made him even more touched as he basked in the magic of the hypnotically fluid movement of the glittering creatures and the embrace of the man he’d wanted for so many years.


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys, sorry it's been so long. I've been super busy with work and Bassy has not been letting me write, but I've got two chapters for you today to hold you over until the next time she decides to slither out of my brain and give me new ideas. I apologize if there's any issue with the French- they don't exactly teach you dirty talk in class. ;)

“Okay love, I’ve got a bag packed with some extra clothes so you won’t have to wear those scratchy hospital pajamas, a wizard chess set, and some books so we won’t be bored to death.” Draco listed as he threw things from the trunks at the ends of their beds (although they only ever really slept in one at any given time) into a muggle-style duffle bag.  
“We?” Harry asked, cocking one eyebrow sarcastically.  
“You don’t think I’d leave you in there all alone with your bones knitting back together and a bottle of skele-grow as your only company?”  
Harry thanked the gods (which were apparently a real thing, seeing as he was one now) for his amazing boyfriend as he pecked him on the lips.  
“You know, after this weekend I won’t have to contort my upper body just to hold your hand properly,” the blonde teased, picking up his boyfriend’s awkwardly angled wrist.  
“Haha. It’s not so funny when it’s your elbow, knee, and ankle as well.”  
Draco quickly sobered as he thought about how unfair Harry’s life was and how awful it was that anyone could treat a child that way. Looking back, perhaps his flirting should have been less playground bully, but it certainly made for an interesting story to tell their kids one day (he blushed when he realized he wanted to have kids with this man one day).  
They passed Luna and Ginny in the hall, sitting on Neville’s lap as they traded kisses between study questions.  
“You guys studying for that big test in DADA Monday?” Harry asked.  
“What test?” Neville visibly blanched.  
“That never gets old!” Harry was wheezing, he was laughing so hard.  
“You’re mean when you’re with Draco,” Neville grumbled, but he had a good-natured smile on his face.  
Just then, the grey lady passed them, giving a slight head bob as she passed Harry.  
“You seem to be a big hit with the ghosts lately.” Harry nodded noncommittally and looked away. He’d promised himself he would tell his friends about his… new job once he started experiencing symptoms of necromancy, and while he hadn’t summoned any non-Hogwarts ghosts or spirits yet, he could sense his connection to the dead getting stronger. It was disconcerting in a way, but also filled him with an ironic sense of vitality, and, well, rightness. “One problem at a time,” he reminded himself, taking a deep breath and entering Pomphrey’s domain with Draco.  
“Ah Mr. Potter, glad to see you. I was rather convinced I’d have to hunt you down and drag you here.” She pursed her lips and poked his ribs, her expression giving him the impression that stuffing himself with as much fatty Hogwarts food as he could clearly wasn’t cutting it for her. Harry sighed. This was going to be a long weekend.  
“Let’s get this over with.” He sighed, thinking of all the quidditch he could have been playing and all the making out he and Draco could have been doing. Well, they could still do that with a good silencing charm, he supposed.  
The medi-witch guided him over to his usual bed and grabbed her wand and the dreaded skele-grow. “I’m not going to lie to you, Harry, this spell is very painful, and I’m going to need to do it five times, so you might want to grab your girlfriend’s hand.”  
“Girlfriend!” Draco screeched, offended.  
Madame Pomphrey looked at him impassively. “I didn’t even spend that much time on my hair when I was young and hot,” she remarked sassily, leaving Draco and Harry shuddering over the idea that Poppy Pomphrey had been young and “hot.”  
The spell certainly looked and sounded painful, Draco mused to himself as he watched, wincing, as the bones popped out and back in to the timing of the complicated Latin chant. Harry, on the other hand, didn’t even flinch or change his facial expression from that of mild curiosity as he watched the process, causing even Pomphrey to raise an eyebrow. What kind of things did the Dursley’s do to him that he watched his own invasive procedure with as little concern as if it was merely a medical lecture?  
“Well, that’s that settled,” she said five minutes and an awful potion later as she wrapped the injuries in splints, leaving poor Harry with only his left arm unencumbered out of all his limbs. “Now you’ll just have to rest for the weekend and give them time to heal. I’ll be able to take the splint off your right ankle on Monday, but you’re going to have to keep the others on for another two weeks or so. I have a pair of crutches I can loan you.”  
“Crutches! You didn’t mention that last week!” The chosen one cried, dismayed.  
“Well, I wanted to leave some chance that you’d come to me so I wouldn’t have to hunt for you all over the castle.”  
“You were a Slytherin, weren’t you?” Draco asked, impressed in spite of feeling bad for his boyfriend. The medi-witch smiled and winked in return.  
“It’s okay love, we’ll work around it,” the blonde whispered seductively to a still pouting Lord Potter.  
Wanting to give the two boys some privacy, Pomphrey retreated to her office, but not before leaving a copy of the daily prophet on the stand by Harry’s bed. “Delegates of the Lord Potter-Black-Peverell-Slytherin-Gryffindor spark interest in politics at the latest Wizengamot meeting,” the headline read, accompanied by a photo of the Weasley twins smiling as fireworks exploded in the middle of the conference room.  
“I’m not sure if the use of my full title makes this funnier or just dumb.” Harry gasped between belly laughs.  
“Well, if they didn’t use it, you could technically sue the paper for ‘lack of proper deference.’” Draco told him once they had both calmed down.  
“Ugh, politics are so complicated. Can’t I just permanently hire the Weasley twins to handle my affairs?”  
“Sure, if you wanna destroy the wizard world.” Draco snorted before going in for a kiss, apparently more concerned with his handsome partner than the idea of a Weasley-led magical anarchy.  
“Tu embrasses comme un dieu.” Harry whispered hotly into Draco’s neck as the other boy pressed kisses along his chest and shoulders.  
“I love you, but your accent is terrible.” Draco snorted gently as he sucked on his boyfriend’s collarbone.  
“Well I apologize that my books don’t have a button I can press to hear the words. But I can understand all your bedroom talk nonetheless.” Then, lower and huskier, “Baise-moi ici, à présent.”  
“Not here! You’re injured and Madame Pomphrey’s in the next room. She can’t catch the Gryffindor golden boy doing that.”  
“Mais je te veux.” Harry whined, his voice taking on a needy edge.  
“Think about Hermione yelling about how you haven’t returned her French novels yet.”  
“Yep, it’s gone. Chess?”


	26. Chapter 26

Two days, countless games of Chess, and three readings of Tales of Beedle the Bard later, it was Monday. The fact that Harry rejoiced in the coming of Monday made a poignant commentary on how much he hated the hospital wing. He hobbled to the door of his classroom on the abhorrent crutches, kissing Draco lightly at the door before making his way slowly into the room of curious first years.   
“What happened Prof- Harry?” Sandrine, the little Slytherin muggleborn who knocked his glasses off the first day, asked him.   
“Oh, little quidditch accident. I got a little too ambitious with a new barrel roll move I was inventing,” he lied casually. “Have you been working on your aim, young lady?” He smiled at her as she blushed and looked away.   
“Alright, today we are going to be working on the jelly legs jinx,” he announced to his class, dropping his crutches so he could navigate the room more easily. “Don’t tell Pomphrey,” he chided, holding a finger to his lips as concerned little eyes followed the abandoned implements. He conjured up a number of cushions to cover the stone floor (remembering to use his wand this time) and found a spot in the middle of the room to stand and watch the wobbling adolescents with carefully, ready in case any of them got a little too enthusiastic or lost control over their fledging magic.   
Next was potions class, and Harry walked in and cast a brilliant smile at Draco, who blushed as his dark, handsome, and not-very-tall boyfriend went to sit beside him at their usual table.   
“Potter, could you please come to the supply closet for a moment before class?” Snape asked as he swooped in. Harry, already comfortably seated, pulled himself up and didn’t bother to reach for his crutches on the ground, but Draco grabbed them and handed them to him when the Slytherin head cast the Gryffindor a death glare.   
“If you keep calling me up at the beginning of every class, people are going to start talking.” Harry laughed, leaning casually against his crutches and looking fit for the cover of a Witch Weekly.   
“They’re too busy running their mouths about you and my godson,” Severus sneered, unimpressed with Harry’s sense of humor.   
“Oh yeah, Draco is your godson, isn’t he? Add in Al Pacino and this could be a movie. You’re certainly scary enough to head the mafia.”   
“Haha Potter. Now take your medicines and get back to your seat. Slowly!” he snapped as Harry tried to scramble away while balancing his salve and inhaler on his crutches. “Oh, just give me those!” he groaned, grabbing the supplies back and following Harry to his seat. “It’s a wonder you can stay on a broom, clumsy boy.” Harry flinched slightly at the use of the word boy, and Snape’s eyes softened marginally in understanding, as close to an apology as he ever gave.   
“Well, he doesn’t always stay on the broom.” Draco quipped, breaking the silence.   
“I thought us dating meant you would stop insulting my seeker skills.” Harry punched the blonde playfully with his good arm.   
“I never signed a contract or anything.”   
“Prat.” Harry said.  
“Twat.” Draco replied.  
“Silence!” Snape boomed from the front of the room, his baritone ricocheting off the walls of the dungeon and filling the room without Severus even having to yell.   
The room settled into a productive silence as everyone started dicing their salamander tails.   
“Ron, don’t add the chili peppers now! Do you want to set the room on fire?” Hermione screeched twenty minutes later.   
“Some things never change.” Harry laughed quietly.   
“But it’s a good thing some things do.” Draco smiled, laying his head on Harry’s shoulder.   
Meanwhile, up at his desk, Severus was thinking, “That Granger girl saves me so much work.”


	27. Chapter 27

Harry was staring moodily at both his still-full plate and his crutches by turns at breakfast the next day when McGonagall came by.  
“Staff meeting at four today,” she told him. “Leave your boyfriend at the door.”   
“We don’t spend that much time together, do we?” He asked, lifting his head from Draco’s shoulder as the others laughed.   
“Mate, you sleep together. Like, even when you’re not shagging, you just cuddle.” Seamus remarked as Dean gave him a look that said “would that really be so bad?”   
“You’re practically joined at the hip, bro. Even ‘Mione leaves me early at breakfast to go read in the library.” Ron laughed.   
“What do you know, Weasley?” Draco stuck his tongue out at the other boy, which was a sign that it was good natured ribbing, as a Malfoy offering serious disdain would never make such a crude gesture. “Come on Har, let’s go.” He grumbled, helping his boyfriend off the bench and shouldering their school bags.   
“Not exactly disproving the point there, ferret.” Ginny picked up where her brother left off.   
“Harry’s hobbling. I need to go with him to carry his schoolbag.” Damn the Weaslette.   
“It has a feather-light charm on it; I could carry it myself,” the chosen one cut in.   
“Not helping, love,” Draco mumbled.   
“Sorry, my bad. Lead the way, you dapper gentleman.” Harry did a slight bow, almost losing his grip on his crutches as went to follow his blonde boyfriend.   
“Yeah, you clearly need him!” Pansy called from across the table.   
“Save your breath for snogging your girlfriend, Parkinson.” He shot back at her, trying not to laugh as Millicent blushed and Sal let out a serpentine chuckle.   
“Hey, do you think you could drop me with your radish friend for the day?” the little snake asked. “I don’t want to be involved for whatever plans my kinky human has in mind for her and her mate during her free period.” Harry, who was actually on the verge of leaving with Draco before he said this, had to collapse back into his boyfriend to keep from falling, he was laughing so hard.   
“What? What is it?” Millie, the newest member of the group asked, confused.   
“Sal wants to go with Ron for the day, Pans. He doesn’t want to be involved in any weird lesbian snake sex.” Said Weasley looked over at the couple in horror.   
“I’ll take the little guy, but is this normal lesbian behavior?” Everyone looked around in an awkward silence before Neville motioned to his girlfriends. “Pretty much.” He summed up.   
“Ginny!” Ron gasped again, blanching.   
“Nope,” his little sister shook her head. Everyone looked over at Luna, who smiled and shrugged before going back to her upside-down quibbler.


	28. Chapter 28

“I’ll pick you up after the meeting, love you.” Draco kissed his boyfriend softly on the cheek before handing him his notes and turning, reluctantly, to leave.   
“Love you too,” Harry tried to balance himself to return the kiss, but ended up slipping a bit and kissing his ear instead. “The sentiment’s the same,” he grumbled as the blonde laughed.   
He was excruciatingly aware of how conspicuous the crutches made his entry into the room. Living with the Dursley’s had ingrained in him the desire to slip around as unnoticed as possible, as catching the attention of his “guardians” indubitably meant a long list of chores and then a beating for doing them “wrong.” Being Harry Potter in the wizard world made that rather difficult, being Harry Potter on noisy crutches in a castle with stone floors in the wizarding world made that impossible. He made his way, blushing, to his seat, which he noticed with even deeper embarrassment was more cushioned than the others.   
“Harry, good to see ye! Fang’s been missen’ yehr company.” Hagrid always had a way of diffusing the tension.   
“I’ll try to get down and visit with him soon.” The youngest staff member smiled at the gentle half giant before catching sight of Pomphrey’s disproving glare. “Or later.” He gulped.   
“First order of business,” McGonagall began. “How’s Defense class going, poppet? The students are effusive in their praise.” Harry flushed again at the term of endearment as he watched Snape smirking in the corner. I wish Sirius were here, he thought to himself, that would shut him up.   
“You called, oh Master of Death?” A nearly corporeal Sirius popped up in the middle of the room amidst many gasps.   
“You just have to make an entrance, don’t you?” Harry sighed. This was not the way he wanted the news to come out.


	29. Chapter 29

There was one second of such profound silence you could hear a wand drop before the room burst into noise.   
“How?!”  
“What?!”   
“Why?!”  
“Dammit!” the last exclamation came, of course, from the mouth of Severus Snape.   
“Really, now Padfoot?” Harry shot him a look, and everyone could see the fact that his eyes were clearly a steely grey instead of their normal green.   
“Hey, lil’ Prongs, you called, I answered. Consider this my revenge for getting down to the underworld and finding out how much you’d been hiding from me.” Blue eyes hardened slightly as they met Harry’s temporarily dark ones.   
“Not this again,” Harry grumbled, kicking over one of his crutches with his good foot.   
“Does someone want to tell us what’s going on?” the headmistress’ voice cut through the office.   
“Hey Minnie, it’s been too long!”   
“Not now, Sirius Black! You do not get to disrupt my staff meeting and then start batting your eyelashes and playing coy. Now Harry,” she turned towards him, her voice softening, “do you want to tell us what’s going on?”   
“Alright, fine. But I’m only going to explain this once, so just let me,” he snapped his fingers, and all his friends crumbled into the middle of the room. Sirius yelped and stumbled back, grumbling something about being fairly solid.   
“Is this gonna be a regular thing, teleporting us all over the place when you need us, because some of us were in the middle of something,” Pansy complained, buttoning up her robes quickly.   
“Can’t see why Regulus likes this one so much,” the spirit in the room spoke up, jabbing a thumb at the Parkinson girl.   
“Shut up, Pads, she’s basically the Slytherin you.” Harry spoke up, almost managing to hide a smile in spite of the chaotic situation. “And do you guys just spy on us from down there?”  
His godfather shrugged. “Eh, it’s fun. Like watching one of those muggle films.”   
Just as the room seemed to calm down, bracing for an explanation, Thanatos popped in.   
“What the hell are you doing here?” Harry asked him, irate. Just what this situation needed- a divine being.   
“You didn’t think I’d miss my kid’s first summoning, did ya?”   
“Excuse me, your kid,” Sirius yelped, offended. “I know he’s your heir, but I’m his godfather.”   
“I kept him alive. Just because the old laws didn’t let me take him out for ice cream on Saturdays doesn’t mean I don’t care about him just as much as you. You’re just lucky you even got into Elysium, you annoyed Hades so much during your judgement.” Thanatos snapped back.   
“Does someone want to explain what’s going on?” Draco interrupted, his arm wrapped protectively around Harry.   
“Apparently divine adoption doesn’t involve paperwork. Or telling the kid.” The chosen one shot a sharp look at the only other resident god.   
“WHAT??!!” The occupants of the room gasped, their mouths open comically.   
“Hey, a god’s gotta retire sometime, and this kid has spunk. So I adopted him.”   
“I am going to kill you.” Harry mumbled under his breath.   
“That’s my boy! Save it for the mortals, though.”   
“Wait,” Severus said, “I’ve been worrying myself to death about this boy’s health, and you’re telling me he’s immortal?” He looked very affronted.   
“Well yeah, but he’s still transitioning. You’re making the poor guy a lot more comfortable. He still can get sick or hurt like any human right now. He just can’t die. Not to mention that becoming a god ain’t exactly easy-peasy, especially when the kid’s body wasn’t that strong in the first place.”  
“And hey, Snivellus, Lilly appreciates the fact that you’re finally treating her son like an actual human being.” Snape’s self-righteous face quickly melted into an odd mix of shame and pain as he shrank down in his seat.   
“By the way,” Padfoot continued, “what you’ve got planned for the Dursley’s. Needs work- the Marauders could have done better first year.”   
Ron looked at Snape with a new respect, his opinion improved by the fact that the greasy dungeon bat was planning on taking revenge on his best friend’s abusers.   
“So um, staff meeting stuff? I was wondering if anyone knew where I could get a grindlylow for my second years?” Harry tried, largely ignored. “Okay, still on this then?”   
“Why didn’t you tell us, Harry?” Hermione asked, her tone reasonable but with a hint of sadness.   
“Well, I was going to, but I was taking a while to try to figure out how and do it at the right time. And then I accidentally summoned Sirius.”   
“Figures it’d be a Gryffindor who’d cause trouble from beyond the grave.” Pansy snorted.   
“Remedial god problems, Chapter one: What to do when you start displaying symptoms of necromancy.” Thanatos rolled the words off his tongue.   
“There’s a guidebook and you didn’t give it to me?” Harry accused him.   
“No, but I’m thinking about writing one now.” The god smirked.   
“Oh, for the next unsuspecting mortal you adopt?”   
“No kid, you’re it. The whole parenting thing is hard. You can just pass the duty on to your kids one day.”   
“Because you were such a good parent,” Sirius snapped at him.   
“Hey, what was I supposed to do? Completely immortalize the scared five-year-old living in the cupboard who didn’t even know magic was real?”   
“You lived in a cupboard?!” Draco screeched, gripping his boyfriend’s non-splinted hand even harder.   
“Thanks for the godhood and all, Thanatos, but with all due respect, please leave?” the dark-haired teen sighed while shaking out his knuckles where his boyfriend had them in a death grip, his eyes back to a tired green.  
“Sure kid, just, uh, summon me sometime for a chat, would ya? We still got a lot to talk about?” the god intoned before popping silently out of the room.   
“So, uh, Har, do you mind letting me go back down to the underworld for the time being? You can call me back when you talk to your parents and Cedric later. For now, I think you’ve got some explaining to do.” Sirius shuffled from foot to foot awkwardly.   
“Sure Pads. And guys, ask whatever you want now, but after we leave this room, there are certain things I don’t want brought up again.” Harry leaned his head into Draco’s shoulder and tried to find a more comfortable position, which was rather difficult with his entire left leg and foot encased in a cumbersome splint.   
“Cupboard?” McGonagall blanched.   
“Yeah, the cupboard under the stairs. My Hogwarts letter was addressed there. It was a little cramped, but on the bright side, I’m not afraid of spiders.” He chuckled slightly, trying to ease the tension.   
“Well, we will no longer be using self-addressing quills to send out letters.” Minerva pursed her lips, and, sensing her favorite (not that she’d ever admit it) student’s tiredness and dismissing the meeting despite all the unanswered questions hanging in the air.


	30. Chapter 30

Harry sat on the floor of the Room of Requirement breathing deeply, trying to prepare for what he was about to do. It had been a day since he’d summoned Sirius to the staff meeting and he knew it was time to summon his parents and Cedric, as well as Sirius, he supposed. He’d been so distracted all day that Draco had ended up doing most of the work for their potion in Snape’s class, and had very narrowly missed having his hair lit on fire by a stray spell from one of his second years. It was an accidentally overpowered spell, so he didn’t assign any detention, but did set the students to bookwork for the rest of the class, something that had his students murmuring their concern to each other being their books, as it was so rare that the class was anything but practical. His friends had also been worried, but not even his overprotective partner had tried to come with him for this, understanding he needed some time alone with the parents he never knew and the boy whose death he still felt so keenly guilty over. So here he sat in a meditative position, except for his left leg, propped awkwardly to the side, the splint not allowing him to bend into a complete lotus pose.  
He took another deep breath, the white-hot knot of anxiety and anticipation feeling like a tiny dragon stomping around. He imagined the little dragon exhaling all the negativity out of his mouth in a trickle of black flames before gathering his nerves into his vocal chords.  
“I hereby summon James and Lilly Potter, Sirius Black, and Cedric Diggory from the domain of Elysium in the realm of Hades.” Despite his nerves, his voice echoed authoritatively through the bare room as he spoke the words that came to his mind unbidden. He felt a warmth flood from his middle to his limbs and extremities, an odd sort of warmth, as if he was sitting in front of a fire in a dark cave. He opened his eyes and inhaled again as he saw his parents, godfather, and childhood crush appear in the middle of the room and onto a rug that had suddenly appeared. They looked more… solid than they had that day in the forest with the resurrection stone, and they were bursting with color, the vivacity of which he hadn’t noticed in Sirius the day before, what with all the distractions. He’d seen photos of his parents before, but nothing could compare with the deep hues of his mother’s flaming hair falling to her waist in soft curves, her eyes the same as his (although right now Harry’s eyes were infused with the grey steel and dancing flames that appeared when he connected to his godly powers). His father’s hair seemed to be mirroring his exactly, sticking out in all directions, a cowlick here, a curl there, some entirely unheard-of style asserting its dominance in the back, not to be beaten by a mere comb even in death or immortality. His smile when he saw Harry seemed to be a mix of all of Harry’s happy facial expression, the curve of his upper lip reminding Lilly of the fond expression she’d often watched (from her special window in Elysium) as her son looked at his friends and loved ones and blonde boyfriend, while the quirk in the corner of her husband’s mouth and the sparkle in his eyes reminded her of the look Harry and Ron shared when they were up to some mischief. Cedric stood quietly slightly to the outside of the group, looking Harry up and down and noticing that he’d barely gained any height and perhaps even lost a little weight since he’d been alive. For a god, he didn’t look the part in the slightest, but there was a deep, awe-inspiring power behind his eyes, and the former Hufflepuff was unsurprised that he had managed to defeat Riddle. Watching all the shattered pieces of his abhorrent soul fuse agonizingly together and be sent off to eternal torture in the Fields of Punishment, and Hades, who was rather fond of Thanatos’s scrappy little heir, had forced the pathetic “dark lord” back into the mutilated baby body he’d risen from in the moments after the Hufflepuff’s death as the abhorrent creature was subjected to the combined pain of every crucio and torture curse he’d ever cast as banshee-style voices screamed things like “Kill the spare,” “Not Harry!” and, Hades piece-de-résistance, a dead-on impression of Salazar Slytherin’s voice booming “You filthy little Half-blood!” While Cedric Diggory wasn’t vindictive in life and certainly not in death, he thought Voldemort’s torture was truly inspired and he took great pleasure in it- and the irony is, it was eternal, just what the evil man had always wanted.  
Everyone’s thoughts were jerked back to the present when Harry finally spoke his first words to his parents, all of them, that is to say, and not just a shadow or a shallow reflection.  
“Mum, Dad,” he choked, his voice cracking in a way that it hadn’t since fourth year, when all the boys sounded like scratched discs in a record player. “It’s really you. All of you- I can feel all of you here. And I’m not about to die.” Lilly, no longer able to hold back tears that weren’t quite solid, rushed to her only child, his godly magic adjusting to his deepest wish and making her just solid enough to hold him close, James quickly following.  
They held each other for a long time, Harry unashamedly breaking into sobs, his head on his mother’s shoulder and her hair tickling his neck. In the last 16 years, he hadn’t truly cried. He’d growled, he’d swiped at angry tears and sunk into deep, all-consuming depression at times, but he hadn’t truly sunk into tears since he was two years old and Vernon beat him for the first time, and he’d learned that crying only made the blows rain harder. But none of that mattered now- he was in the arms of people who loved him, and they were content to hold him tightly and murmur soft, loving words into his ears as he let go of a lifetime of pain, anguish, frustration and heartbreak mingling with the joy of this bittersweet moment. Harry decided then and there that he was deeply and truly grateful to Thanatos, more than glad to spend an eternity tending the domain of the dead if it meant he could have his parents like this, all the time and whenever he wanted.  
“We’re so proud of you baby. You did so good. You shouldn’t have had to, but you did. You made it darling. Mummy’s here.” Lilly was crying just as hard as Harry now, and James was trying and failing to stay strong for his wife and son. Cedric and Sirius sat somewhat awkwardly behind, waiting until they were needed while playing hackey-sack with a not-quite corporeal apple the room had provided.  
The tears finally subsided as Lilly stepped back to look at her son, scrutinizing him as only a worried mother can. “I see you’ve finally put on some weight. I suppose that means Severus isn’t quite as much of a total arse as he has been,” she admitted grudgingly, still very much furious with the man and unwilling to give him too many concessions. She leaned her forehead against her little boy’s (he would always be her little boy, even when he was 10,000 years old and a fully-fledged deity in his own right) and rubbing her thumb tenderly along his most famous scar, as if she could make it go away. In a sense, it worked, as Harry felt that all the stares and glares and unwanted fame and notoriety stemming from the lesion had been overpowered and replaced by the ecstatic feeling of his mother’s touch.  
“And you’re dating a Malfoy,” James put in, somewhat cheekily.  
“I know it’s not exactly conventional dad, but…”  
“Hey, he’s a decent kid. Just born to the wrong father,” James cut in to reassure his son, “and he’s quite attractive.”  
“Dad!” Harry buried his face in his hands, mortified.  
“Your father is more than just a ladies’ man, pup.” Sirius broke in, grinning. “Up until he met Lilly, he was completely in love with David Bowie, by his own admission.”  
“I told you that in confidence!” It was James’ turn to be mortified.  
Cedric decided this was a good time to say his piece.  
“You know it wasn’t your fault, right? My death, I mean? You were only trying to do the right thing and be a good sport. There was nothing you could’ve done.”  
“It’s just, sometimes I think that if I’d just reacted a little faster, that maybe…”  
“I still would’ve died, and you along with me, because you wouldn’t have stopped trying to save me. And then there would the world be? My string was cut, and yours needed to keep growing. It was important for the world to keep turning the way it was made to. You couldn’t have stopped it- it’s been written in stone since the world began.” Cedric smiled confidently at the younger man (well, technically the looked the same age, but just because Cedric was dead didn’t mean he was gone. He had kept growing and learning as a person in the afterlife just as in life. It was his nature. Some never learned and some never stopped). Harry smiled tentatively back.  
“You guys seem to know a lot about this Greek stuff. I’m supposed to do it forever and I’m still learning (or rather, knowledge was still slowly leaking into his brain as he adjusted to his role).”  
“You’ll pick it up quickly without even trying, darling. And you already speak the language. Actually, you speak all languages. Or at least you will.” His mother informed him.  
“I will?” Harry scratched his neck. Just when he thought he was beginning to figure it all out…  
“Of course, poppet,” she laughed, and her ruby lips popped the p’s. “How else are you supposed to guide all the souls?”  
“I… hadn’t really thought about it, to be honest.” He replied to his mum.  
“You’re just like your father like that. Smart as a whit, but figuring it out as you go along.” She cocked her head a moment. “That’s the dinner bell, sweetheart, you’d better run along.”  
“Do I have to go right now, mum?” his eyes, so like her own, pleaded with her.  
“You can call us anytime baby, but right now you need to eat.” If he’d been raised with her and James and wasn’t so physically fragile, she would have swatted him playfully, but instead she kissed him on the cheek and gently patted his arm as she ushered him out the door and they all faded away, back to their normal afterlives.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey guys- I know a lot of you review, and that's great. But I haven't been seeing a lot of input lately (except for locobriar- they review every update, bless them) and I don't wanna be THAT writer, but I work really fucking hard on this and hitting the kudos button and moving on doesn't really tell me anything. This chapter was especially hard to write, as I lost a parent when I was young as well, although I was a little older than Harry and if anything I feel the loss a little more keenly, as I remember enough of my birth mother for her to be real to me, but still so little that it always feels as though she's just out of reach. I've been trying to work up the gumption to write this very emotional chapter for weeks, ever since the last update, since you guys like the story so much, and to get no input on a chapter I poured my heart and soul into and that was acutely, keenly painful to create in a very personal way would really hurt me. I don't have to write this and honestly if it wasn't for the fact that I've people who said they enjoyed this story early on I would have just stopped putting it on paper and kept it in my head for my own enjoyment, glancing through the harder parts. We writers here on ao3 work really hard to create something that you will enjoy. Putting your writing out there for others to read is a bit like baring the deepest part of yourselves for others to prod through and judge, so when our writing provides you an entire afternoon or even longer of enjoyment, please take the time to at least write out a short comment. It means a lot to us and when you treat something so personal and special to the creator with such flippancy it's really painful and can feel like discounting us as a person, because our writing always contains a bit of our hopes and dreams, our blood and sweat and tears runs through the ink, and no matter what we've written, it always contains some representation of what we want in life and who we hope to be. Take a minute to treat us with the respect we deserve. Writing is hard and we don't have to share our private amusements with you- we do it because we want to and we deserve appreciation.


	31. Chapter 31

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Le multiple update tonight! Yay! And remember, I'm greedy for reviews. Especially because I had stupid fake Mexican food for dinner even though we all wanted Chinese because my little cousin's an ass. Make me happy. I have the power to update as often or as rarely as I like (I could be nice and say I won't hold you hostage for reviews, but I'm a bitch, so this is a threat. Enjoy!)

Harry and Draco were laying in Draco’s Slytherin-themed bed on a lazy Saturday morning after the eventful week they’d prior, tangled up in each other and in no hurry to get up, despite the fact that it was almost nine. They were waking up slowly, and Harry yawned adorably before frowning and running the index finger on his un-splinted hand over the scars on Draco’s chest from the Sectumsempra incident back in their sixth year.   
“It’s not your fault love,” the blonde reassured his boyfriend, grabbing the worrying hand and squeezing lightly. “I was about to crucio you, after all.”   
“Yea, but that doesn’t make it right. Besides, I should have known better than to cast an unknown spell at you. I could have killed you!” The dark-haired boy, no, the dark-haired god’s voice rose and cracked at the end.   
“Relax- it was a tense situation, and maybe something could have happened, but it didn’t, and you were only defending yourself. You didn’t know back then that I loved you way too much to actually pull off an unforgivable. Besides, now we match,” Draco responded, smiling slightly as he stroked one of the even deeper scars on Harry’s caramel-colored chest from god-knows-what.   
Harry leaned forward to peck the Malfoy on the lips gently, and the light-skinned boy’s body hummed in response.   
Knowing he had his partner right where he wanted him, Harry whispered huskily against the soft, smooth lips under his rougher ones. “So, are we gonna stay in bed today, dragon?” The silencing charms around their canopied curtains ensured that they’d have privacy even in the throes of passion-fueled ecstasy, and Harry’s extremities itched in a completely different way than the feeling his potions allergies caused.   
Draco groaned and the effort it took to tear himself away from the incredibly hot and willing boy embracing him was physically painful.   
“If you don’t show up to breakfast Sev’s gonna be apoplectic.” He ground out, the effort to resist his more primal urges coming out in the frustration in his voice.  
“I could conjure us something.” Harry’s hot breath sent shivers down Draco’s spine, and he actually whined. Damn his boyfriend for making this so much harder than it already was.   
“I don’t think that’ll work, unless you want a worried dungeon bat popping in on us during our… liaisons.”   
“Alright, alright, I’m up. Hand me those stupid things,” he ground out, now as thoroughly frustrated as Draco, who reached down for the crutches, which were only ever called “those stupid things” (or “bloody-fucking-useless noisemakers,” if his boyfriend were particularly irritable).   
Draco grabbed the crutches and stood them up before gently pulling his boyfriend off the bed and helping him to his feet as he kissed a comparatively small scar along the underside of his jawline. Harry, with his back to the bed hiding the worst of his scars (he knew they made Draco sad, so he tried to keep him from seeing them when possible) spelled on a fitted black-muggle t-shirt that emphasized his muscles, more obvious than ever with the hollows by his ribs slowly filling in, a pair of ripped gray jeans, and some ankle-length leather riding boots. Draco, struck with the sudden urge to try something seeing how Harry always looked positively rakish in muggle clothes, grabbed a brown slip of fabric from atop a neighboring trunk and pulled it over his head.  
“Uh, Dray,” gasped Harry, trying not to laugh, “that’s Hermione’s nightgown. Ron likes to sleep with it.”   
The nightgown was discarded faster than if it had been Nagini herself wrapped around the grey-eyed boy, who flushed in embarrassment as Harry handed him his robes.


	32. Chapter 32

He and Draco were the only ones at the Gryffindor table at breakfast besides a couple of first years, who looked at their professor/fellow student as he entered and helped himself to some fruit. He then hobbled over to the Slytherin table, meaning to ask Pansy a question about the charms theoretical assignment they were working on, but found only the elder Greengrass sister with the other girl’s serpentine familiar draped over her shoulders.   
“Miss Daphne,” he acknowledged, bobbing his head respectfully. “Do you by any chance know when Pans will be down?”   
Her dainty nose wrinkled as she replied. “Her and Millie were so busy last night I’ll be surprised if they’re awake by dinner.”   
Harry was saved from responding by the approach of Professor Snape, although that brought with it its own dangers.   
“Mr. Potter,” he inclined his head slightly, his usual drawl far less contemptuous. “I was wondering if you knew where your friend Weasley is. I need to discuss his abysmal essay score with him.”   
Panic dawned on Harry’s face for a moment. “What essay, sir?” he asked, eyes wide.  
“Don’t concern yourself with it Harry, you were teaching a class at the time.” Being called Harry by the Potions Master only made his eyes widen more for a fraction of a second before he schooled his expression. “Very well sir, I’ll ask Draco about it later so I don’t miss anything.” He then paused for a moment before continuing with slightly less confidence in his voice. “By the way, I was hoping I could ask you for help with lesson plans for my sixth-year classes- we’re working on nonverbals and I’m in a bit of a bind.”   
One dark eyebrow quirked sardonically as the Potion Master sat, stunned for a moment before formulating a reply. “And why, indeed, would the great Harry Potter come to the lowly Potions Professor for help?”   
Harry ignored the sarcasm in the older man’s tone, knowing it was more for the sake of his reputation than anything else.   
“You were a defense teacher, were you not?” he drawled back in a very good imitation of Severus Snape’s trademark tone, although the effect was broken when he tried to cross his arms and adopt an intimidating stance, forgetting about his crutches. He would have fallen on his arse if the former death eater hadn’t reached down to grab him under the armpits.   
“Very well Potter, come to my office during your free period. I can see that you are sincere in your request for assistance if you can’t even keep yourself upright unaided.” The professor was trying very hard to bite back a laugh, but Harry’s blonde boyfriend was offering no such courtesy as he doubled over in hysterics from his viewpoint at the Gryffindor table. Snape, however, couldn’t resist the opportunity to at least join in on the fun a little, and he hoisted Harry, still unable to reach for his crutches from his current position of being completely supported by Severus, in the direction of his godson.   
“Mr. Malfoy,” he called, and his voice did betray a slight smile this time. “I believe this belongs to you.” Draco only laughed harder, and the few first years from various houses studying together at the Ravenclaw table looked very confused at the change in the dour man who spent all his time in class calling them “dunderheads.”   
“That’s enough, Severus,” the merciful voice of Headmistress McGonagall broke through as she made her way over from the head table and bent down to give Harry his crutches. “You’ve had your fun, now let the poor boy alone before I treat you like a student and give you detention.” She wagged her finger at them, but even she seemed to think the situation was amusing as she made sure Harry was securely upright. She then tried to fix his mess of hair.   
“It’s no use professor” the boy responded to her ministrations, still uncomfortable calling her Minerva, “not even the hair potion my grandfather invented seems to do any good. I swear it repels combs.”   
“I can see that,” the tabby animagus responded as the curl she had just placed behind his ear bounced back to standing straight atop his head. “Well, I suppose you can’t blame an old woman for trying,” she sighed, licking her thumb in a futile last stand against an egregiously rebellious cowlick, only to have another pop up on the other side of his head, seemingly of its own accord.   
Draco had ambled over and decided to add his bit to the conversation.   
“It’s the same way when he shapeshifts,” he confided quietly, sure that everyone who didn’t know about Harry’s godly powers was out of earshot. “Every form he takes, his hair sticks straight up. Even as a snake his scales are all ruffled.”  
“Oh, the irony,” Harry sighed melodramatically, swooning backwards into Draco’s waiting arms. “To have bested the dork lord, only to be beaten by a hairbrush.” This was when one of the Hufflepuff second years who had wandered in decided to add her bit.  
“You know, we really should have a theater program here,” she mused, loudly enough for the little group of unlikely jokesters to hear her.   
“Not very likely,” Snape snorted. “The last time we tried such a thing, the old Care professor was down another limb.”   
Breakfast was filling up by this point, so it was unsurprising that a passing sixth-year Slytherin offered “Why don’t you have Potter do it? He seems surprisingly good at keeping all his limbs” with a cheeky smile on his face.   
Harry gave her a mock glare, the effect of which was lessened by the fact that he was still curled up against Draco’s chest.   
“Extra homework for you, Webber,” he stuck his tongue out at her. She simply smiled back innocently.   
“On what topic, professor?” Cheeky little shit loved to play with him, and she was good at it.   
Harry looked around for a moment before his eyes landed on the feast-like spread on the tables. “Pancakes versus waffles,” he told her triumphantly. “Three feet by Monday.”   
“Certainly, oh great savior. One must always know which morning carb has the best trajectory in the event one is fighting for their life in a cafeteria.”


	33. Announcement (not a chapter I'm so sorry)

So those of you who've kept up with this know that my muse, Bassy, is a fickle little bitch. This story is not abadoned- I just never make any promises about regular updates because I wouldn't be able to keep them with the way my brain works. I've been having a really tough semester, and I just haven't had much motivation to write. I've done a couple little things for b99, and I've managed to garner the motivation to add a few hundred words to an original story. I haven't abandoned this; I promise. I'm just having a bit of a rought time haha.


	34. The author is a terrible person who has finally updated and her subscribers deserve better, but for some reason, here they are.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry it's been so long, guys! Like months! But well, I've never been a regular updater, and I was honestly not sure where I was going to take this story next, as I'm kinda playing it by ear here, but I've got two new chapters tonight. Y'all deserve more, but Bassy is a bitch and I'm a human trash can.

Harry was laughing with his unlikely group of Gryffindor-Slytherin friends after lunch a week later when he felt a sudden odd sensation pulling in his stomach, causing him to double over.   
“Harry!” The exclamation came from all sides, but Harry heard it foremost from Draco, who was closest to him, arm around his waist.   
“I… I think…” he wheezed, “that I’m being summoned… soul… gotta take it down.” And before he even knew what was happening, he’d apparated out of the castle almost without meaning to, the fact that said feat was supposed to be impossible barely registering amongst all the other impossible things that had happened lately.  
Whatever apparation this was, it was a lot less uncomfortable than the traditional kind. Harry only had a second to gather his bearings before he realized he was underwater, although he felt as though he was surrounded by a thing coating of air, almost like a second skin, that kept him dry and enabled him to breathe. He was suddenly even gladder than before that Madame Pomphrey had taken the slings off the day before, as those plus the crutches could have only made this already incomprehensible situation that much more cumbersome.   
Remembering that the situation that brought him here was, ostensibly, the reaping of his first soul, he cast his eyes around until they snagged on a quick-moving current, and lying just under it was a body. Harry gasped, trying unsuccessfully to stifle a sob as he realized the body was that of a little girl. She was wearing a pink flowered bathing suit that had been stretched and distended by the current and had odd lumps where patches of sand had been forced between layers of sheer fabric. She looked the traditional picture of a young angel, soft blond curls floating eerily around a face that couldn’t have been older than seven. Her eyes were closed, but Harry somehow knew without looking that they were a bright, brilliant blue.   
He reached out to touch her face, wondering if there was any way… but no, that wasn’t his job. It would be against nature to try to reverse it now, as much as it pained him to admit to himself. He took a deep, shaky breath let autopilot take over. He put a hand over her still little chest and clasped his fingers, the movement like that of reaching for the snitch. A small golden light wiggled inside the cavity between her ribs, and he pulled it up, slowly, gently. It resisted, not wanting to leave the body, and Harry grit his teeth and kept gently coaxing it up. He understood now why he had to start with a child- an adult soul would probably fight a lot harder to stay. This soul was young, scared, and Harry could sympathize, having once been young and scared himself, not too long ago.   
“Shhh, it’s okay little one. I’m taking you somewhere safe.” The little golden light fluttered softly one last time before relaxing, and Harry instinctually took it into himself, and it rested right next to his heart as he was hit with an influx of information about her life- ah, another reason he’d started with a child, then. Her name was Ava, she was six, and she’d been on a beach trip with her orphanage when, overexcited, she’d gone too far out and been caught in a riptide.  
‘At least she was an orphan, then,’ Harry thought, and in any other situation that would be morbid, but then again, his whole job here was morbid, and he wouldn’t be taking her away from a family. Lost in these musings, he didn’t realize he’d been sinking down, down, down until he saw the dark cavernous space surrounded by jeweled gardens. He could hear, further back, three slavering, growling heads that clearly belonged to a Cerberus far larger than Fluffy, the original from which Fluffy and all his brethren descended. His feet kept taking him automatically onward until he reached a grand throne room, facing two gods far bigger than him.  
Hades was formidably dark and austere; the aura he gave off was one of subtle but implacable authority, although there was a softening in his eyes as he looked at Harry and his companion, who, now that they’d reached their destination, had turned from a little twinkling soul into a phantom of her physical body, sapphire eyes looking on in wonder as her little ghost hand grasped Harry’s.   
Persephone, on the other hand, was soft and feminine, her colorful dress and ephemeral violet eyes washed out like the fading of autumn leaves, but her smile brilliant as she held her husband’s hand. Harry thought surely that whatever the rumors may be, Persephone had clearly made her own decision coming down here, her love for the king of the dead clearly present in her face.   
“Um… your, uh… Lordship,” Harry stammered out, starting as he realized he’d been staring for an inordinate amount of time. “I brought…” he trailed off nervously and held up Ava’s hand.   
“Ah, yes. I was wondering when it would be time for you to start your training. Normally you’d just leave the souls in the judgement line, but I thought I’d welcome you personally into my service, and there’s really no need to leave our friend here to wait around. Children as young as she automatically end up in Elysium.” Hades smiled down at the child, his fearful power hidden and replaced with a tender look. His daughter was grown, off tending her own domain.   
Persephone squeezed his hand, a little sadly. She might love him, but her body was not made to spend so much time in a domain like this, and ever since Melinoe, she had been unable to have more children. She encouraged her husband to take human lovers in hopes of more children, but he only had sons, and very few. He did not like to leave her. She just wanted a child that would need her forever, whether she carried it or not. It was hard for her to watch as another soul came in, timid at being summoned, only to freeze when she saw the little girl. The woman’s hair and eyes were darker, but she had the same gentle curls and angelic facial structure as the new little soul, who was currently running to her, screaming “mommy!”


	35. The next chapter of my walk of shame after a six month hiatus, but hey, at least it's not an email for a chapter that turns out to be an apology note for my writer's block again (which I feel bad about, but also I don't wanna keep you in the dark).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys are the greatest, and I love you. I don't know when Bassy (and life in general) will let me write some more, so I hope you enjoy this.

Harry watched with a little smile as his first assignment ran into the waiting arms of her mother. As hard as it had been to take her away, at least it ended well. Harry knew enough to know they would not all be that way, but for now, seeing a child and a mother embracing when they both clearly had lost hope of such a thing was enough. He was still smiling as he watched them fade away, back to paradise, Ava skipping along happily at her mother’s side.   
“So, Harry,” the queen began, and Harry was slightly embarrassed to remember that he was still in his Gryffindor robes, rumpled from a morning of stolen quidditch away from Pomphrey and Snape’s watchful eyes, his hair as much of a mess as usual, if not more, and his eyes widened as he tried to remember how to address her.  
“Yes, um… your, lady, uh?” Harry mentally slapped himself. How articulate he was.  
“You may call me Seph, dear. Thanatos does, so I don’t see why it shouldn’t continue.”   
“Okay… Seph,” Harry intoned carefully. She certainly seemed friendly, but a lifetime of avoiding danger had taught Harry to be wary of others, especially others that were, well, gods. The fact that he, too, was a god seemed to have fled his mind as he took in the aura of raw power around the two deities. They didn’t seem unfriendly, but one could never be too sure.  
The two seemed to pick up on his thoughts, and their smiles became somewhat rueful. Of all those in their domain, it was the children who had usually suffered the most beforehand. Seph sighed and summoned a soft throne-like chair in Harry’s size.  
“I know you’re probably excited to go see your parents, but sit and talk with us for a moment, won’t you?” Harry stepped forward cautiously.   
“Come child, you need not fear us,” Hades deep baritone rumbled kindly. “This is your home now too; at least, I hope you will come to see it that way. We merely want to see if you have any concerns you wish to address.”   
“Uh, no sir,” Harry said as he sat down. “Everything’s been fine so far, well, considering how strange this whole thing has been.”   
“I understand, little one. It is a bit to adjust to, but Thanatos has been looking for a replacement for the past few centuries, and we are delighted he has found such a worthy one.”   
Harry went red. “Thanks,” he mumbled. Persephone watched him fondly. This was a special child- well, a special young man, now. She would have liked to raise him. So many times, she wished to take him from his cupboard and surround him with a mother’s love, but the ancient laws prevented such things, and he was not even hers by blood. Even then, he would not have been hers to keep- there were parents waiting for him even now. With a sigh, she gently tweaked a strand of hair that (unsurprisingly) did not stay in place before waving him off to go see his real family.


	36. Um... what number is this?

Harry realized as he wandered into Elysium that the place was the size of a small country and that he had no idea wherein his parents live. What felt like hours and two food cart curries later (“You may be dead, but your palate isn’t!”), he remembered that he had magic and could just use a point-me spell and then apparate there. So, this is what Pansy meant when she called him a retarded kneazle…  
Elysium was divided into different climate sections so that the dead could choose which one was most comfortable for their personal luxury afterlife. He found his parents and Sirius with neighboring townhouses in a comfortable area where it felt like perpetual springtime, but not so hot as to be tropical. He was about to go up to his parents’ and knock when Lilly came rushing down the front steps, James following close behind her. Except James tripped on the way down, and Lilly took half a second to roll her eyes at him before she grabbed Harry by the shoulders and looked him over head to toe.  
“Hey mum,” he blushed and returned her hug as Lilly, seemingly satisfied that he was doing okay, pulled him into a hug. “Dad.” He reached a hand out to James, who stopped brushing dirt off his muggle jeans and leaned in to join the embrace.  
“We saw your first summoning. It went so well!” Lilly enthused.  
“I’d offer to feed you, pup, but Sirius insisted he could pull off a barbeque, and I’m pretty sure the idea is to have you gain weight, not give you food poisoning.”  
“Hey, Sirius can cook some things!” Harry felt the need to defend his godfather’s honor.  
“Like what?”  
“A ham sandwich,” Harry mumbled under his breath, cheeks lighting up.  
“Did someone mention my culinary specialty?” Padfoot called from inside.  
“Sirius!” Harry ran to give his godfather a hug as well, tripping in the same spot James did.  
“Like father, like son,” Pads laughed as he picked him up, waving off a fretting Lilly, who was trying to get through to check her son over.  
“Excuse me, but we are the epitome of grace on a broom. What’s a little ground stumbling in comparison?” James shrieked in mock indignity.  
“A little?” Lilly teased, pulling him in for a kiss.  
Harry smiled to himself. This was what family felt like, he thought as his parents showed him around the house. There were pictures all over the wall; some were of James and Lilly, smiling in the afterlife, but most were of him. There were pictures of him as a newborn, being held by a tired but radiant Lilly. There was him learning to crawl, taking his first steps, laughing and shoving peas in his little baby mouth. More surprisingly, there were pictures of him at other ages as well; they’d somehow captured snapshots of his life from down here. He noticed with a pang that most of them were of him at Ms. Figgs’ or reading in the old oak tree he used to climb to escape Dudley and his gang. Harry, in typical Harry fashion, felt terrible that his parents had to watch him in pain for years and not be able to do anything about it. It must have been so hard for them. Lilly squeezed his hand and pointed to a picture of him racing after the snitch in his first quidditch game. He smiled, he still remembered how he’d caught the snitch in his mouth, and how Draco had complained louder and for longer than Marcus Flint, so loudly that they could hear him at the Gryffindor table grouching about it months later. Harry smiled too; his boyfriend was such a drama queen.  
“Come on, luv. We’ve got one more surprise for you.” Lilly said, leading him to a door with his name embossed on it in red and gold letters. Pushing it open, Harry was almost struck speechless. This was his room. It wasn’t a cupboard under the stairs or a barred cell full of broken toys. It wasn’t even a standard Gryffindor dorm room, comfortable though they were. This room had clearly been designed with him in mind.  
In the middle of the room was a soft bed with a pillowtop mattress and a worn oak headboard; the quilt on it had a Gryffindor lion and was clearly hand sewn by his mum. The walls were covered in posters- Chudley Canon posters, posters from his favorite books (because he did read, no matter what his friends might tell you), posters of his favorite witches and wizards from chocolate frog cards- and photos of him with Ron and Hermione throughout their Hogwarts years, and more recent photos as well. There was one of him with his arms slung over Draco’s shoulders as they both read from the potions textbook, one of him holding baby Teddy while his hair changed from blue to pink, a photo of him pelting the gross-flavored Bertie Botts at Millie and Pansy as they got a little too heated during a game of truth or dare in the Eighth Year common room, and even one of him helping Molly cook their back-to-school dinner, Ron’s hand in the corner being smacked by Mrs. Weasley’s spoon as it reached for a sausage. There was a bookshelf full of his favorite’s, as well as some he’d been hoping to read, and an armoire he’d bet his trust fund was full of brand-new clothing that would fit him perfectly. On the nightstand was a lamp shaped like a quidditch goal hoop, and the string to switch it on ended with a little golden snitch.  
“Do you like it?” His parents and godfather looked nervous, as if he wouldn’t think this is the most wonderful thing anyone had ever done for him.  
“It’s perfect! I love it!” Harry’s face was alight as he turned big green eyes on his family.  
“We’re so glad!” Lilly said, her eyes taking on the same sparkle as her son’s. “We thought you’d like to have a room in case you ever wanted to spend the night here with us.”  
“You can even spend tonight… if you’d like to, uh, champ.” James scratched the back of his neck nervously in the same way Harry always did.  
Harry smiled widely again before his face fell. “I’d love to… it’s just…”  
“Your friends will be worried about you,” his mum surmised. “Don’t worry, time works differently when you’re doing a reaping (and wasn’t that strange for Harry, thinking about himself as a reaper). No matter how much time you spend down here, when you get back up there it’ll have only been a minute or two.”  
“Oh, so that’s what Thanatos meant when he said I’d have time plenty of time for work and free time.”  
“Yes prongslet, that’s what he meant,” Sirius replied, ruffling his hair, as if he could possibly make it any worse.  
“Come on luv, it’s late and you look tired.” Lilly waved her wand and a pair of fuzzy pajamas flew out of the dresser and into Harry’s arms. They all left him for a minute as Harry changed and then Lilly came back upstairs with a warm cup of cocoa.  
“Goodnight darling,” she whispered tenderly as she adjusted the blankets and kissed his forehead, just to the right of the prominent scar.  
Harry smiled as he drifted off to sleep. For the first time in living memory, he was being tucked into bed by his mum.


	37. Chapter 37

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is just a fluffy filler chapter; I've got more subplots in the works.

It took Harry a moment to remember where he was upon waking up the next morning. When he did, he smiled. He was waking up in his room, with his parents downstairs (frying bacon, by the smell of things). It was nice to wake up to someone cooking breakfast for him instead of the other way around. He traipsed downstairs, still in his pajamas.   
“Mornin’ pup,” Sirius garbled around a mouthful of pancakes as Harry grappled with the coffee maker.   
“Mornin’ Pads. Mum. Dad.” Harry took a sip of the bitter black coffee and sighed pleasantly as the beautiful caffeine coursed through his veins. He grabbed a plate from the counter and started to fill his own plate when Lily put a vial of the green nutrient potion down by his silverware. She caught his nose scrunching and laughed.   
“Thought you could skip your potions just because you’re home, did ya?” she asked, and Harry smiled when he heard the word home.   
“I might have held out some hope I wouldn’t have to taste that this morning, yeah” her son grumbled in return.   
“No such luck, Prongslet, not with your mum here. Who do you think taught Snivellus everything he knows?” James said, looking fondly at Lily, who very conspicuously did not chide him for using Sev’s old epithet.   
“Mine taste better anyway. I, for one, know that putting pumpkin juice in this particular potion won’t do anything to upset the chemical composition.” Lilly fluffed Harry’s matted hair and kissed his nose.   
Breakfast conversation was relaxed and lighthearted as James and Sirius told old Marauder stories and Lilly slapped their hands away when they tried to go for thirds, giving the rest to Harry instead. Lily and James picked up the dishes and pushed Harry back into his seat when he tried to help them in the kitchen, so it was just him and Sirius in the warm little breakfast nook.   
“Harry, can I ask you something?” Sirius put forth tentatively.  
“Um… sure,” Harry said, a little put off by Sirius’ tone.  
“With the Dursley’s… why didn’t you tell me anything? You know I would’ve moved heaven and hell to get you out of there, if I’d known.”  
“I know,” Harry replied with a soft smile, putting his hand on top of his godfather’s. “That’s why I didn’t.”   
Sirius swiped at his wet eyes and hugged Harry goodbye before mumbling something about needing to go get dressed and heading next door to his house, wishing Harry a good afternoon of classes with a lump in his throat.   
Harry got about fifty hugs each from James and Lilly and told them he loved them just as many before wrapping himself in shadow and fading back to his dorm. When he got there, he found Draco pacing frantically in front of their bed as Neville, Ron, and Blaise tried to calm him down, despite the fact that Harry knew it had only been two minutes.   
“Harry!” The blonde stopped pulling at his hair and ran to his boyfriend, almost knocking him over in his excitement and relief.   
“Hey ferret,” Harry laughed as he petted a snuggling Draco. “I know for a fact I wasn’t gone long with the way time works down there, two minutes at most.”  
“Well yes, but it was like, the longest two minutes ever!” Draco whined into Harry’s chest, still wrapped around him like a koala and showing no plans to let go.   
“I have to say I agree,” Blaise said sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Seven years with this git, and I didn’t think he could get any more intolerable. Then he fell in love with you.”   
Theo laughed. “He’s been in love with Potter since first year. And I for one think he’s less intolerable as a clingy heart-eyed sop than he was when he was obsessing about ‘stupid chosen one with his stupid scar and his stupid hair and his stupid perfect seeker skills.’”   
“Couldn’t have been any worse than Harry with his constant ‘I’m telling you Malfoy’s up to something!” Ron snorted.  
“But Draco is, by nature, more dramatic,” Blaise countered.   
“If you’re going to keep making fun of us, we’re going down to the common room rather than suffer this indignity,” Draco sniffed, removing himself haughtily from where he was straddling Harry’s lap and leading him downstairs by the hand.   
“Wait!” Neville called down after them. “First make sure Millie and Pans aren’t fucking down there!”  
It was too late, and Pans and Millie were, in fact, fucking down there.


	38. Chapter 38

     Severus Snape growled and ran a hand through his lank hair. Stupid mutt, insulting his Dursley-crushing plans. Now he had to start all over, and he was having trouble coming up with an idea that wouldn’t get him tossed into Azkaban for the rest of his life. Oh, it’d be so much easier to simply kill them, but he wanted them to suffer for what they’d done to Harry (Potter! Ugh, dammit, feelings!) It had absolutely nothing to do with assuaging his own guilt about mistreating the child he’d sworn to protect, no, none at all. He simply enjoyed nefarious plots. _Of course, you keep telling yourself that,_ said the voice in his head, which was annoyingly similar to that of one Minerva McGonagall. He told it acerbically that he wasn’t becoming a nice person or any such garbage, but the voice simply laughed.

     He tore himself back to the potions list in front of him and contemplated his options. He had been favoring a brew that created constant feelings of hunger, but that seemed too straightforward. He was better than that. But combined with one that made every surface feel like a hard, cramped mattress in a cupboard… that had _some_ potential.

     In planning his revenge, he had snuck into the Dursley house when those sub-human abominations were out for the day, doing _what,_ he didn’t particularly care think about. The sight of the small, spider-infested cupboard with its clutter of household items and it’s lumpy, grungy cot had made his blood boil. Even the perfectly trimmed gardens, not a blade of grass out of place (how irritatingly Petunia) made him angry as he thought about how much time Lily’s overworked, malnourished child must have spent outside in the heat and cold trying to keep it that way. Not to mention that Severus counted substantial quantities of at least three plants from Harry’s allergens list. No wonder the boy didn’t think to say anything about his issues in potions class. _That and your behavior towards him,_ his McGona-conscience reminded him. He had shushed it (her?). But it kept coming back. In the seventeen years since Lily had died, he’d forgotten what it felt like to have _morals_ *shudder*. He didn’t think he liked it. Next thing he knew he’d be giving points to Gryffindor. Oh _wait_ … he’d given points to both Harry and the Granger girl for their perfect potions this morning. He was thankful that the eighth years had class with the Raven and Slytherin NEWTS students. If any of the other insufferable lions had witnessed it, he’d never live it down.

     He cursed his distraction and forced himself to attention again, his eyes snagging on something and the gears in his head beginning to turn. Yes, this would do nicely…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi guys, sorry it was so short. In case you haven't guessed, I ended here because I still have absolutely no idea what to do with the Dursley's. It has to be something truly horrid and prolonged, but I am still stuck on that bit. So in the meantime, more subplots, and I'll happily take suggestions...


End file.
